


The Long Walk Home

by scavengertrash



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Dark, Dubious Consent, Eventual Smut, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Inappropriate Use of the Force, Kylo Ren is Not Nice, M/M, Minor Finn/Rose Tico, Minor Poe Dameron/Finn, Minor Poe Dameron/Rose Tico, Moral Ambiguity, Morally Ambiguous Resistance, Possessive Behavior, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rey deserves better, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-05-19 03:13:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14865515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scavengertrash/pseuds/scavengertrash
Summary: Rey would do anything for the new family she has found in the Resistance. Anything. But when Leia learns about the Force Bond and asks Rey to use it to reconnect with her son and gather intelligence, Rey feels conflicted. She knows that using the Force like this is wrong and could open her to the Dark Side, but the Resistance is in its most desperate hour.





	1. Assignment

**Author's Note:**

> Archive warnings, rating, and tags are in place so that no one gets into this with the wrong idea of what to expect later. Please heed them! But also consider this my apologies for the false advertising, as that there won't be smut until probably chapter 8-ish.

The _Falcon_ offered very little space to the Resistance, and as such, everyone had accepted privacy as a faded dream. Rey didn't mind. She'd been alone so long that it was nice to be constantly in someone or another's company. She didn't mind, except for the fact that everyone had a tendency to keep moving around like pacing, trapped animals while they hurtled through hyperspace in search of a base that Leia had off the top of her head.

 

She was good like that, Leia. Like the old Jedi books, Leia could offer them the rich history of the Rebellion in a way that even Poe could not.

 

That didn't stop Rey from listening to the Commander's stories, however. Not so long ago, she had paid good rations for stories like these. She drank them up greedily now, an endless string of questions on her lips to help keep him going. As long as he kept going, the silence wouldn't come, and her demons wouldn't catch her.

 

"They let you go?"

 

"Of course not," Poe answered her with a laugh. "But they didn't have to."

 

A grin spread wide across Rey's face at that answer, but at her elbow, Finn said, "Alright, that's enough bragging." He got to his feet, hitting Poe on the shoulder lightly. Poe grinned too, unashamed to be caught out. "Come on. I want to see if Rose is doing any better. Rey?"

 

Rey watched as some of Poe's spirits dipped, but her gaze shifted to Finn. Slowly, she shook her head.

 

"No. I don't want to crowd her."

 

Kriff, Rey didn't even _know her._ Everything she knew of Rose was that Finn loved her, really loved her, and didn't even recognize it. Poe did, though. She watched the Commander shuffle off after Finn, feeling sorry for him. They'd only just met, and Poe didn't know it, but they had something in common, he and Rey. She knew what it was like to love someone who didn't know what they had in front of them, someone who couldn't love her back.

 

She looked around the narrow living space of the Falcon. With Finn and Poe gone, she was actually alone for the first time since they'd left Crait. Chewie was up at the helm, watching the stars streak into lines as they flew past. He said he liked to be up there for emergencies, but she was pretty sure that he just found the stripes of white calming. Peaceful. Consistent.

 

The ambient sounds of people moving about the ship funnel and dilate, suddenly distant, and panic clamors up Rey's throat. No. She hadn't wanted to be alone. It only happened when she was alone, as though her loneliness reached out to his.

 

"Rey?"

 

Leia's voice cut through the shadows. She leaned against the edge of the table, and Rey wondered how long she had been there before saying something. Stars, how long had she been staring into nothing in the first place? That wasn't normal.

 

"Do you mind I sit down?"

 

"Please." Promptly, Rey scooted aside to make room for her at the dejarik board where Finn and Poe had been. She hadn't had a lot of time alone with the General, but even when they were without further company, she noticed that the burden Leia carried, the loss, never slumped her shoulders. Not even a little bit.

 

How did she _do that?_ It seemed impossible.

 

"I forgot how cramped it was in this old piece of junk," Leia said it fondly, resting her hand on the dejarik board.

 

She fumbled a moment to flick the switch and turn the game on. Old holo monsters roared to life and engaged in glitchy posturing gestures, but the game was frozen in time. Rey and Chewie hadn't touched it since … The mood around the table turned very sober.

 

"What was he like with you?" Rey asked.

 

"Han?" Rey nodded. "That depends what you want to know. And why you're asking."

 

"Something that Kylo Ren said." This, she confessed freely. "I asked him why he did it, why he hated Han so much, and he told me that he didn't. But he also told me before that Han had disappointed him." She looked at Leia, shaking her head, and clarified, "Not in so many words."

 

Rey's words stick in Leia's teeth. She looks like she's not quite sure what to make of them, weighing some unspoken assessment. Had Rey said the wrong thing? Insinuating bad parenting probably violated some unspoken rule of engagement where conversation was concerned — all these social rules she'd never needed to know before buffeted her now that she actually spent time around people, but she often considered them too late. That ineptitude left her too blunt for most people's liking, but here and now Leia remained soft. Surely she wasn't upset.

 

"My son took issue with all the parts of Han that drew me to him. He was a scoundrel," she admitted with some distant fondness. "He was stubborn, and he was quick to decide how he felt about things, and he did whatever he wanted. And every once in a while, what he wanted lined up with what I did, and things were good. It never lasted very long." Admitting that sounded like Leia was confessing to some defeat, but Rey wasn't sure what the battle was. She looked over at Rey, resting aged hands on hers. "Like any good smuggler, he always moved on when he felt like he was out of his depth — with the New Republic, and with the Force."

 

"You liked that about him?"

 

"He was honest," Leia said fondly. "He knew what he didn't know."

 

"But you needed him."

 

"No, I didn't." Leia pulled her hands back. "This isn't the kind of fight you can conscript someone to when they feel lukewarm about it. That's how you get cold feet. And cold feet is how people die."

 

"Well, he didn't die because of cold feet." Rey felt suddenly defensive of Han. She'd barely known him, and Leia had _loved him,_ and still. "He died because he —"

 

"Because he decided to listen to me." Leia's lips pulled into a thin line. "This … isn't what's really bothering you, is it, Rey?"

 

A silence settled over them, and the fevered heat of Rey's indignation slowly seeped out of her like grains of sand between her fingers. She cast her gaze down, studying the fold of her hands. She hadn't told anyone the truth about what happened on the Supremacy, but intelligence had started to gather bits and pieces.

 

Poe had been the first one to congratulate her on killing Snoke. Admitting to him that she hadn't, after all that, had seemed too hard. From there, she just sank deeper into the lie, until explaining would be more difficult than continuing it.

 

Sensing Rey's unease with replying, Leia probed further.

 

"What else did you talk to my son about?"

 

"Everything."

 

Not in words, no, but in the ways that counted, they had shared everything. He knew the deepest parts of her soul, and she knew his. How could she go on to be his enemy when that was true? When any time she was suitably alone, it might happen again? She felt like a traitor, harboring this secret.

 

"And how is he?"

 

"Conflicted." Rey looked up at Leia. She could not keep lying to this woman who had done nothing but show her care and affection, who had been more of a mother to her than her own. "There's something you need to know."

 

It all came out in a rush then. The truth about their conversations on Ahch-to, about what Luke had done, about the way they'd unseated Snoke together, and … when Leia asked how … the truth of the strange connection that the Supreme Leader had built between them. Finally putting it out there left Rey keenly aware of how lost she was, of how she frayed at the edges as she continued. From the beginning it had been to much for any one person to carry as their own burden, but she had tried all the same. It caught up with her now.

 

"I can't find anything about it in the texts I took from Ahch-to," Rey said gravely. "No way to sever it for good. All I can do is try to keep him out."

 

"Is that what you want to do?" Leia asked. "Keep him out?" When Rey sat up straighter, confused, Leia continued. "Maybe it's time that you let him in."

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"Rey, you have a direct telepathic connection to the Supreme Leader of the First Order." Not her son, not Ben Solo, not even Kylo Ren. Rey's skin prickled with dawning awareness, a cold feeling trickling down her spine. "I understand why you kept this from us, but think of what it could mean."

 

"No." Rey shook her head. "Leia, please."

 

"We need to use every advantage we have."

 

"The connection is closed," Rey said. Her voice felt far away, her vision seemed to funnel. "I cut him off on Crait. I haven't seen him since."

 

"And Luke cut himself off from me. For years. But when the time came, I could still feel him." Leia sighed. "The Force has given us something here. A chance. I'm sorry that he disappointed you, Rey, but Ben made his choice. As much as I'd like to see him come home, we have to live in the world we have. The war doesn't stop just because he's torn."

 

This was bigger than all of them. Leia was right, but every atom of Rey's being screamed against the violation of turning her own mind over to the cause. Suddenly she understood why Ben and Luke had turned away from it, why it was easier for Luke to give his life for it than to stay and fight. The fighting would be ugly. The fighting would cleave her open.

 

"Can you reopen it?" Leia asked.

 

"It's a two-way bridge," Rey said. "If I let him in, he'll be able to learn just as much from me as I can from him. I won't be able to help the Resistance anymore."

 

"The intelligence that you could provide would mean more to us than a warm body in the field, Rey. Can you do it?"

 

"Don't ask me to do this," Rey said finally. "Please."

 

"I wish that I didn't have to. But I am." Leia got to her feet. Then, knowing it made it easier because Rey had _told her that, made that confession in confidence,_ Leia said, "I'll leave you alone."

 

When she was gone, Rey felt an emptiness open up in her chest that she thought she had left behind her on Jakku. A bone-deep isolation that left her cold.

 

* * *

 

 

Thousands upon millions of stars in the universe, light-years between them, including a single system that was wishing goodbye to its central star, and that cold still reached, sinking deep into Kylo Ren's bones as he stared out over his good work. Only the creaking of leather as his hands curled into fists at his sides filled the room.

 

He was alone. He was in control.

 

For the first time in his memory, there was no whisper, no shadow lingering over his mind like a haze, whispering to him, no light peeking through to beckon. Only Kylo and the dark. He'd gone a lifetime dreaming of a moment like this. Freedom, he'd thought.

 

He was wrong.

 

Droids whirred and clicked as they salvaged parts from the equipment damaged on Crait. Somewhere, Hux would be tallying up the resource cost of what he had deemed Kylo Ren's posturing against the Resistance. He kept his lips tight, didn't say it as he would have once when Snoke was there to keep him alive, but Kylo knew that what Hux really meant was _Kylo Ren's failure._

 

They had been there in his grasp, so close, so terribly close, and he'd let them slip away. Because of Luke. Kylo thrust his fist forward into the glass viewing window. Once. Twice. It rebuffed him both times without cracking. First Order craftsmanship. Truly admirable.

 

Kylo ripped his lightsaber off his belt and ignited it, in one swoop cutting a slash through the glass that caused an alarm to sound and the droid to stop work. Their containment area was no longer, well, contained.

 

The plasma blade retreated, the smell of burnt artificial atmosphere faded, and three troopers rushed in to see what had happened.

 

He watched them examine the window without a twitch in his stony expression. This didn't make sense. He should have found peace in this freedom, in his uncle's death, in the power he had. These were the things that he had sought over a lifetime to protect him from all that would have wounded him. Security. Finally.

 

He didn't feel satisfied, though. He didn't feel _secure._

 

And he knew why. The girl.

 

"Supreme Leader," came a simpering voice from the doorway, tight to hide the loathing behind it. Hux did a poor job. "I'm sorry to say there have been no developments in the tracking of the Resistance's … _ship_ as it departed Crait. No one has seen or heard from their leadership since it happened."

 

_No one who would admit to it, anyway,_ Ben thought. That was perhaps the most infuriating part of what she'd done. He'd been so close to stamping it all out, to razing it all and starting anew, and now … That scavenger had put down _roots._

 

He heard the stories. Not aloud, but in the minds of stormtroopers who had been planetside since. Men and women and monsters deep in their drink would tell tales of Luke Skywalker, the hero of the Resistance, and of the Jedi who had returned to rescue them from the First Order's darkness.

 

"You came to report that you have nothing to report?" Kylo asked, turning his anger on Hux.

 

Like a viper, Hux coiled in on himself and bared his teeth before he got a real answer out.

 

"Yes, Supreme Leader."

 

"Leave," Kylo said flatly. "Come back when you have something to report."

 

Sometimes, it was good to simply remind him of where the power lay in these uncertain times. The more afraid Hux was, the less likely he was to act. Still. It would only be a matter of time, Kylo was sure, until the General made a move against him; he could see it in the forefront of Hux's mind. In so many ways, that was the greatest insult of them all.

 

But why not punish him for it? Not terribly long ago, Kylo would have relished in squeezing him for all that he was worth just to get out the rage that bubbled up and threatened to swallow him. _Why_ hadn't he find release in that?

 

He knew the answer to that too. And that was why he knew — as long as Rey lived, his position would never be secure. The galaxy would never bow. She was their hope, and it fell to him to snuff it out.

 

"Find them," Kylo ordered. "I don't care if you have to burn down every planet in this galaxy to do it. _Find them."_


	2. Fears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While the Resistance arrives at a new base, Rey struggles to do what Leia has ordered of her, and her own doubts draw out further conflict among the ranks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Added chapters in the interest of earning my E rating sooner — probably chapter 5 instead of 8 at this point. Otherwise, keeping on track. Thanks so much for the kudos and comments, y'all. I'm trying to keep this eventual filth as canon compliant as I can. For now, enjoy the Rose/Finn/Poe love triangle going on.

The only place that Rey could get space to herself was in the cockpit, and even then it wasn't so much _to herself_ as _without interruption._ Chewie sat with her, minding his own business and corraling porgs away from the instrument panel. Even his presence, though, was enough to interfere with her meditative calm while she tried to close her eyes and reach out through the Force. Or, more likely, she was just telling herself that so she felt better about the fact that it wasn't working, and so she didn't have to blame her lack of enthusiasm.

 

She just didn't _want_ to see Ben again right now. Some part of her flinched away from the pain, afraid of its inevitability. As long as that was true, she knew she wouldn't see Ben again. She'd have to open herself to the pain if she were to open herself to him.

 

"Am I interrupting?" Finn asked, settling into the jump seat behind Chewie.

 

"No," Rey sighed and rubbed the armrests of her chair. It was still covered in wookiee fur from all the years Chewie had used it, and the holes the porgs had torn in the upholstery only revealed more that had worked its way in as added padding. Some people would have thought that grungy, a sign of its age, but for Rey, it made it feel like home. "Well, yes. But I'm glad you did."

 

"No progress, huh?"

 

The question sobered Rey up. She had guessed that news of her instructions would work through the tiny Resistance quickly, but she hadn't been looking forward to any conversation with Finn or Poe about it. That was a good way to make things complicated.

 

"Not yet." She got to her feet. "Try again tomorrow, I guess."

 

"Maybe it'll be easier once we land."

 

"If we land," Rey said grouchily. "I'm beginning to think Leia's sending us on a mynock hunt." Chewie wailed at her and she clapped her hand on his shoulder, sighing. "I know she's doing her best."

 

"We're all feeling a little restless," Finn said. He tried to sound encouraging, but the truth was it only betrayed his own restlessness. And she knew what was causing it.

 

"I don't want to talk about it." Rey moved past him, and he followed her out of the cockpit. "I appreciate what you're doing, Finn, but—"

 

"But what? You'd rather be _alone_ dealing with that psycho?"

 

"Yes!" She rounded on him. "That's the only way I _can._ Even if I told you, when the time comes, it's just going to be me and him. Anything else is just going to make it more complicated."

 

"Well, I don't like it. I don't like that he's in your _head,_ Rey."

 

"Neither do I." There's a snarl in her voice that she doesn't like. She likes even less that she's using it against _Finn,_ but he just doesn't get it. He doesn't get why this is hard for her, and she can't explain it. "Take it up with Leia. Maybe she'll listen to you."

 

Finn sighs and settles down onto the bench by the dejarik board. A long moment of silence passes between them, then he pounds his fist on the top of the board. The outburst draws her first smile in days, and she joins him.

 

"I'm sorry," Finn says.

 

"So am I."

 

"I hate feeling like there's nothing we can do. And I _hate_ that this means I won't be able to talk to you."

 

"What do you mean?" Concern drew lines across Rey's forehead. "Finn, of course we can still talk."

 

"Not about the stuff that matters." Finn looked up at her, pleading and sorrowful and honest. He had figured out what she hadn't yet. "What happens when this works, Rey?"

 

Sooner or later, it would. Everyone knew that. It had stopped being a matter of 'if' and instead a matter of 'when' the minute Leia had set her on this task. Rey wouldn't fail them, not where it counted, but they might just fail her. No, that wasn't fair. The Resistance couldn't _possibly_ include someone who was leaking like a sieve to the First Order; if she was going to use him as a route for information, he could use her too.

 

 _Stars,_ just how much would this cost?

 

"It's not forever," she told him.

 

"Right." Finn said. "Just until we win."

 

They both knew how long that would be, and a new silence swelled. Rey gripped his hand for what felt like hours until her copilot's wail drew them up out of the bench and back into the cockpit.

 

"Did you find the signal?" Rey asked.

 

Chewie made a sound, and Finn asked, "Does that mean yes?"

 

"Yes, it does." Rey grinned. "Great. Chewie, put us down wherever you get a chance."

 

"Why do _you_ look so happy? You don't even know where we're going!" And it was true. Leia couldn't tell her the location of where they were headed, or it'd be in her brain for Ben to siphon out. That's why they'd had Chewie navigating to some sort of beacon Leia knew to expect at whatever base they were heading to.

 

"Because it's a win," Rey replied.

 

They went to alert the others while Chewie brought the _Falcon_ out of hyperspace. It didn't take long, cramped as the light freighter was.

 

The cargo hold was full of crates from their latest supply stop. It only made quarters on the _Falcon_ more cramped, and Rey more grateful that they'd be landing soon. She'd been going stir crazy with Ben on her mind and all these _people_ everywhere. She hopped up onto one of them beside Poe Dameron, the Resistance's recently promoted Commander. Or recently re-promoted. Rey wasn't quite sure how that had gone.

 

Either way, he looked surprised to see her sticking around while Finn went back to get Chewie.

 

"You don't want to see the landing?" Poe asked her, concerned.

 

"I don't want _him_ to see it." Her voice was dark. Understanding passed over his face like a ghost, and Poe looked down at his hands. He knew how much they were asking her, but as the leader, he knew that he had to ask it too.

 

"Look, Rey—"

 

"I don't want to talk about it." Rey drew her lips up in a smile. "How's Rose doing?"

 

That, Poe didn't want to talk about. At least, she got the sense that the subject made him uncomfortable — just vague impressions. She'd never delve his mind, even to skim the surface of his thoughts. She knew what it meant to him to have his privacy, especially after what had happened to the both of them.

 

He talked about it anyway, confronting that discomfort he felt towards Rose and showing real genuine optimism about how quickly she was recovering.

 

"She was conscious for a little bit today," Poe said. "I tried to get Finn, but … By the time he was at her bedside, she was out again."

 

"Why does it bother you to see them together?" Rey had never put much stock in pretense, so she cut straight through it and asked what she really wanted to ask. She knew why she got uneasy when she spotted Finn's longing looks — they cut too close to home — but Poe could be hard to read. "Finn cares about her so much."

 

"And she cares about him," Poe said. "She saved his life. He tell you that?"

 

He got to his feet, hands planted on his hips while he paced away. Something was clearly bothering him — something bad enough, apparently, to give him conflicted feelings about a recovering Resistance fighter. Something bad enough that he didn't look Rey in the eyes.

 

"Yes," Rey said. "He's told everyone."

 

Finn had that way about him. Gushing. Enthusiastic. She loved it about him just as much as anything else.

 

"Yeah." Poe mulled over that for a while, then said, "Well she's not the only one."

 

"The only one who saved him?" Rey furrowed her brow, and then— "Oh!" Poe shot her a look as though her surprise somehow vindicated him, and that drove her finally to her feet. He couldn't keep on like this. Avoiding the problem was only going to embitter him further, and — "Poe, if that's how you feel, you should tell him."

 

"Not exactly the time for that," he pointed out.

 

"And we have no way of knowing if there will be a better time." Rey held firm. "Poe, trust me. You can't live your life just pretending and hoping it'll go away. If you let fear rule you, then—"

 

He raised his eyebrows at her meaningfully.

 

"That's not the same."

 

"I'd karking hope not." This assurance erupted from his chest like a sudden bark of surprise. "I'd hate to meet the person who felt that way about a guy like Kylo Ren. They'd have to be worse than he is."

 

"Yeah," Rey said, but her agreement was quiet. Tense. "At least think about what I said. Please."

 

"Why's it matter so much to you?"

 

 _Because,_ she thought, _if I'm not going to be happy, at least Finn can be._

 

But aloud she said, "You're the Commander of the Resistance. Can't be good to have dissent in the ranks, right?"

 

He studied her for a moment after that as if sifting through to something more significant. Then finally he just nodded, rubbing a hand over his hair, and glanced down the hallway that wound around to the cockpit. The puff of his exhale marked his decision.

 

"Alright. _Alright!"_ He dropped his hands. "I'll think about it. Come on, help me get this stuff ready to unload."

 

"Yes, Commander," Rey said, laughing as she hopped to her feet.

 

All while they unloaded, Rey couldn't help but think that maybe Poe was right. Maybe she _was_ letting her fear win. The guilt crept in little by little. She'd given him that long speech, but her persistence in avoiding her duty was certainly more of a hindrance to the Resistance than a few hard feelings about Finn and Rose. She didn't have any business talking to him like that when she was still burying her head in the sand.

 

Rey descended the cargo ramp with the last of the supplies and drew a deep breath of the clean air on whatever planet they'd settled on. She didn't have a good sense of where they'd come. Not so far from Kessel. They'd only been in flight about half a day since their stop there, so that narrowed the possibilities considerably, especially with the thick forests of this planet.

 

She tried to stop her speculation. Eventually, she was going to connect again with Ben. Eventually, he'd be able to pull those thoughts from her. She wouldn't be his weapon against the Resistance. Not now, not ever.

 

That's what she was really afraid of.

 

Chewie patted her on the back as he came down after her, and she passed the crate of cargo off to him, faintly distracted.

 

"Would you take this inside?" She glanced up at him, nerves crackling to life as she realized she was _asking_ to be left behind. "I need to be alone for a minute."

 

A sympathetic noise rumbled in the back of his throat, but she nodded insistently. _Yes,_ she was sure. She had to be sure if they were ever going to get anywhere with this. He didn't like having to leave her, but he did, and so did a train of porgs. She watched them hop down the rocky hill, cutting through the trees towards the big hermetically sealed door to the Resistance's new underground base.

 

And then she was alone.

 

Rey turned away from the base to look up at the _Falcon._

 

"I hope you knew what you were doing," she whispered to Han, and then hiked past it.

 

The forest ended in a bluff that overlooked a black salt beach and a glittering lavender lake. She had a guess of what minerals might have made the water that color, but she'd never seen anything like it. From afar, it looked like a giant jewel.

 

There was only one way to let Ben back in, and she knew it. Bridging their minds wasn't just a matter of clearing hers, or reaching out, or being alone. It wasn't about closing her eyes and hoping for the best. Conquering her fears that he might retaliate, that she might disappoint the Resistance by leaking information, that she'd have him bouncing around her head again was all well and good, but none of that really dug to the core of the issue.

 

If she wanted Ben back in the forefront of her mind, she had to open herself back up to the hope that Ben still had a choice to make — and the fear that came with it, that he might not choose her. To accept this, to know that she was powerless and that it was his choice, but to still hold onto the hope that he would make the right one.

 

Rey sat down at the edge of the bluff and, for the first time since Crait, imagined what it would have looked like for him to be there with her. If he had left the Supremacy with her, stopped the attack on the fleet. If he were at her side and good and _Ben_ again.

 

Tears trickled down her cheeks, and ugly sobs pulled out of her chest, so loud they nearly smothered the sound of space funneling around her. But only nearly.

 

She looked up at the dark specter in the corner of her vision, cheeks red, eyes damp, and asked, "Why do you always appear when I'm miserable?"


	3. Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the Bond reestablished, Rey and Kylo have a tense reunion. Rey leaves it further conflicted and turns to Finn for help and understanding.

Unwashed hair hung in greasy waves around Ben's face, locks sticking out in uneven clumps and knotting around each other. That gaunt quality his face had always possessed had worsened in the weeks since she'd seen him; red rimmed his eyes and the skin beneath them had taken on a purple-gray hue. His hulking shoulders were hunched around his ears, and his hands were squeezed into fists at his side.

 

_He isn't really here,_ Rey told herself as she watched the way the wind failed to pick up the tails of his cape where the hem dragged in the grass and soil. But it _felt_ like he was. His presence rippled across the Force, bent the space around him, as it always had. Her stomach flopped around like it wasn't sure if it wanted to climb up in her chest or plummet into her abdomen upon seeing him.

 

They regarded each other in stiff silence for a moment before she asked, tears staining her cheeks red, "Why do you always appear when I'm miserable?"

 

"Like calls to like," he answered. Simple. Unaffected. He always appeared so impassive, but she could see the way his mouth twitched like he regretted that he had accommodated her by replying. It's that thought which seemed to spur him on to say, "I thought you would be pleased."

 

"You think I wanted this?" Incredulity shook her voice, but he didn't waver.

 

"Yes." When she didn't reply, he took it upon himself to continue. She knew by now how to leave him breathing room to further expand his thoughts, where it was needed. "The Resistance survives," he explained with thick disgust. "And Skywalker's legend with it. You won."

 

She looked away from him. Of course he would see it so simply. She had turned against him, and given that his side had lost — they'd failed to eradicate the Resistance, as he'd hoped — hers must have won.

 

"That's one point of view." She didn't owe him more than that. Not anymore.

 

They hovered there for a moment, uncomfortable in one another's company. She didn't lunge at him as she once had, but neither did she reach to embrace him. He felt further away than ever. How could she get information from him like this? Sustain this? Just when Rey was thinking that Leia had asked too much, he spoke again.

 

"I did not think I would see you again like this." Regret tinged his expression. Heavy and somber, like he was realizing something inevitable and bigger than he was and so very outside of his control. Then, he announced a realization; "You were keeping me out."

 

"Yes."

 

"Because you fear me." He found smug satisfaction in that, and she could feel it pulsing off of him in the Force. The bond did not afford them the particulars of one another's thoughts — not without active effort, easily blocked — but it did split open their hearts and lay them bare to one another. He was _proud_ to be a monster, a thing to be feared. He had done well for himself.

 

"Because I have nothing to say to Kylo Ren," she corrected savagely. Ben Solo, on the other hand — but he wasn't here. He was buried deep under the monster that was proud to have terrified her.

 

She gritted her teeth, angry with herself and with him for the way they suffocated him.

 

"Then why allow me back in?" He sounded genuinely curious, soft in the same way he had in those first few moments they'd connected. It was an emotional curiosity posing as an intellectual one, distant but nonetheless personal. "Have you changed your mind?"

 

" _No."_ She got to her feet then, dusting grass off her knees and her backside and stomping away from him. He followed, albeit a little awkwardly. It appeared he had to step around something to chase her down the hill.

 

Truthfully, she didn't want to give him the answer. He'd sense any deception, just as she sensed his pride and just as he had sensed her fear to begin with. It went beyond that, though, and well into the fact that she didn't want to _face_ the answer; she recognized that instinct in herself now. The need to delude herself, to shy away from the ugliness.

 

What was the ugliness here? She scoured her own thoughts for it, delving deep into her silence and—

 

Her molars ground together, but she realized it wasn't her instinct. She turned to look back at him, stopping, and saw that he had begun to chew on the inside of his cheek. It was that same nervous gesture he always had — an externalization of his anxieties, his conflict. And now she had adopted it too. Damn him. Damn this connection. She didn't care to know how dissatisfied he was with her persisting refusal, just as she'd never wanted to hear him reiterate the offer in the first place.

 

His desperation, his loneliness, only made everything between them that much harder.

 

"Snoke created this connection," he prompted. "It should have died with him."

 

"The First Order didn't fall with him either." Rey stopped him before he could read more into that — she knew where he would take it. Something about purpose, destiny; something that he thought might compel her to see things his way. Neither of them, as it turned out, had been able to completely surrender their hope for the other. "If every bridge fell when its builder died, we'd be in poor shape."

 

"You're oversimplifying," he told her, and she readily decided that she didn't care. "And avoiding something." His forehead twitched with the effort of parsing her feelings. "Me. But you welcomed me here."

 

"I regret it," she said.

 

"No, you don't." She didn't answer, so he took a step closer to her. "You only wish that you did."

 

He was right about one thing; she was running from him, avoiding the truth. She'd told herself that she wouldn't do it anymore after what had become of her parents. There was no way to regain the years she'd lost on Jakku, and she did not want to mire herself in past regrets, but she could change the way she engaged looking forward. She could be _better_ than that sad little girl who'd fooled herself into believing that anyone in the galaxy loved her.

 

"I am afraid," she admitted finally. That was why she hadn't wanted to do this in the first place, why it had taken Leia's order to get her to actually surrender her defenses. "But not of you. I'm afraid of placing my hope in you again."

 

Rey could handle Kylo Ren. But her feelings for Ben Solo were another story. Proximity and the way his dark gaze bored into her now, drilling deep through the plates of armor that protected her soul, only drew those fears closer to the surface.

 

"You should be," he said.

 

And then he was gone.

 

Fresh tears prickled at the corners of her eyes and she glanced around the forest wildly, shocked by its emptiness in a way that she knew she should not be. Once, this had started feeling almost familiar. Only weeks, yet it seemed like a lifetime ago.

 

Rey wiped her face and drew in a few slow breaths to calm herself. Her hands were steady. As alarming as it had been, as hard as it was to see him, it was over. She'd done it. The hardest part had come and gone and she was still standing, so she hiked back towards the base.

 

Lost in thought as she wandered the hollow metal hallways of a one-time Rebel base that had clearly been designed for greater numbers than the Resistance had anymore, she quite nearly collided into Finn.

 

"Whoa!" He shouted, grabbing her by the shoulders. Jerked from the depths of her distracted mind, Rey looked up at him.

 

"Finn?"

 

"You okay?" That wasn't a question Rey felt prepared to answer. Not so soon, anyway. She nodded numbly instead.

 

"Where were you coming from?"

 

The redirect worked, and instead of worrying about what she had been up to, Finn looked behind him and let a grin spread over his face.

 

"Rose is awake." He beamed as he said it, and soon his joy had become her own. "For good awake, or so the doctor says."

 

"Oh, Finn, that's brilliant! Where is she?"

 

"There's a little medical bay at the back this way." He gestured. "I can take you."

 

They shuffled off together, not quite arm-in-arm, but in a companionable joy that helped Rey shrug off the heavy shadow of her conversation with Kylo. She had to start thinking of him as such, or she would never make it through the assignment Leia had saddled her with. As long as he was with the First Order, he had chosen not to breathe life back into Ben Solo, and the feelings that she had weren't for Kylo Ren.

 

Accepting Finn's leadership meant realizing just how expansive the base here was. She hadn't taken the time to explore it, but it just kept _going,_ burrowing deep into the side of the mountain. They must have been able to house hundreds of rebels here at one time.

 

There must have _been_ hundreds of rebels at one time.

 

It was an overwhelming thing, to realize the history behind the torch they had been passed. And she still hadn't _touched_ the Jedi texts she'd taken from Ahch-to. In part, she told herself that she was mourning Luke, but some of it was also sulking. What good would those books do her if she didn't even have a lightsaber? She wasn't much of a Jedi without them.

 

Despite the base's size, they reached the medical bay in just a few moments. 'Bay,' as it turned out, had been a generous term. It was a closet, barely a cubby with three beds and a single half-operational droid that staggered between a status panel and the storage cabinet. This was one of the more run-down bases, Finn explained, — Rey didn't know what to make of that for it implied the others were even _bigger_ — and it had been used mostly for storage of equipment and munitions.

 

"Not much cause for a medical staff," he finished with a shrug. He waved at a round-faced girl with short, black hair who sat up straighter. Pushing her bangs aside revealed how wide her eyes had become at seeing Rey.

 

"You're— You—"

 

"I'm Rey."

 

"Well, yeah!" Rose sputtered out the words. "I mean, I've heard of you. People talk about you a lot. In a good way, I mean." She looked up at Finn, searching him for some kind of assistance, but he just laughed at her. Rey joined then, as though his amusement granted her permission.

 

"I've heard of you too, Rose." Rey stood at the edge of Rose's bunk, but Finn settled down to sit on the edge of it with her.

 

"You have?" Legitimate confusion struck her.

 

"Yeah." She looked at Finn. "You saved my best friend's life. That's the sort of thing that leaves an impression."

 

Surprised, flattered, and touched, Rose looked up at Finn as well, a little bit of wonder there in her expression that Rey could appreciate. She felt that way looking at Finn too. Rose said, distantly, "I guess I did."

 

"You guess?" Finn scoffed. "I'd be toast if you hadn't done what you did."

 

"I only remember parts of it," Rose said.

 

"Yeah? That makes sense," Finn said. At least, it sounded like it made sense. "You were hurt pretty bad. Do you, uh, do you remember what you said to me?"

 

Rose put some thought towards it and shook her head.

 

"I hope it wasn't stupid."

 

"It wasn't."

 

"What was it?"

 

Suddenly Rey felt like her presence wasn't entirely welcome here. She ducked her head to hide a shy smile and looked away, suddenly interested in the droid's hardware. This moment between them felt private, and she was an interloper.

 

"Just that we wouldn't win sacrificing ourselves," Finn said. He cleared his throat, raising it to say, "And you were right. Isn't that right, Rey?"

 

She glanced back and nodded, "Oh, sure."

 

Rose's eyes darted between them, but she said nothing more. In fact, she seemed a little disheartened, if Rey had to guess. Something else must have happened in that moment.

 

"Please," said the droid. "Miss Tico needs to rest."

 

It was an old model, damaged in the war, and it still didn't know how to construct sentences that weren't painstakingly awkward. But Rey nodded and reached for Finn.

 

"Come on," she said. They waved, excusing themselves, and beyond the door, Rey picked up immediately to ask, "What did she actually say to you, Finn?"

 

"What?"

 

"You were lying to Rose." She turned to face him. "I could tell."

 

It hit his face all at once — right. No one could lie to a _Jedi._ He should have guessed.

 

"She kissed me out there," he admitted. "She was out of it. Really hurt. I guess … She must have been delirious, right?" Rey softened, reaching for his hand and quieting as she walked with him through the halls of the base. He continued thinking aloud, "And she said we'd win the war by saving what we love."

 

"She meant you."

 

"I don't think she meant any of it," Finn replied. "That fight at Crait … things were looking really bad for all of us. I'm not gonna hold her to it if she doesn't even remember."

 

But Rose had lied too. Rey glanced behind her. It didn't seem fair to insert herself into that, to correct Finn's assumption when Rose clearly had her reasons for holding it back. But that sad look on her face settled into Rey's chest, twisting and familiar.

 

"Saving what we love, huh?" She sighed.

 

Finn let go of her hand to hold her shoulder, staying her from moving any further into the base. Concern writ across his face, he asked, "Are you sure you're okay?"

 

"It's just … Crait." She couldn't lie to him. She didn't have it in her. "Thinking about it makes me think about …"

 

"Kylo Ren."

 

"Yeah," she admitted. "I saw him today."

 

"It worked? _Hell yeah!_ " Finn whooped, shaking her shoulders with real, genuine excitement. That's the sort of thing she should be feeling — getting an open channel into the midst of the First Order should make her feel victorious. Everyone was lining up to tell her just how victorious she should feel, it seemed, but none of it touched her.

 

Eventually Finn realized that Rey didn't share his joy, and he quieted.

 

"Uh, Rey?"

 

"It was hard," She told him. Getting the words out was harder. "Seeing him again hurt."

 

"Why?" A dark look settled into his features. "Rey, did he do something?"

 

"No," She admitted. "I just thought it'd be easier after what he did, after all this time, but it's not. It's still complicated." They were enemies, yes, but it was _complicated._ Muddied by the fact that while they were on opposite sides of the war, they both still wanted to be on the same side as each other.

 

"Complicated how?" He really didn't get it.

 

"Because of how I feel." She looked at Finn and found his expression blank. That was … odd. Just how much did Leia tell him? Understanding settled in a moment later, and it was followed by something incredulous and — and disgusted.

 

"What you …" His expression twisted. "We need to talk to Leia."

 

"What? Why?"

 

"Because of whatever that psycho did to you, that's why."

 

"I just told you he didn't do anything!"

 

"Rey, he's a _murderer._ I watched him decimate a village on Jakku just to get at one guy." Finn shook his head. "All this time, I've been tearing myself up wishing I'd have stopped it. Now you're telling me you've got _feelings for him_?"

 

She bit down on her tongue. She didn't want to answer him any more than she'd wanted to answer Kylo earlier, but now she was beginning to think that maybe she'd have been better off if she had bitten down on it earlier. She'd never seen Finn like this.

 

No, that wasn't true. She just only saw Finn like this where the First Order was concerned.

 

"It's complicated, Finn; I told you."

 

"No. I don't think it is. He's _brainwashing you._ That's a thing Jedi can do, right? Control minds?"

 

"Not each other's." At least, he hadn't been able to when she was on Ahch-to. Not across the bond. If she weren't so positive, she might have been afraid of what Finn was saying, may have really considered the possibility. She couldn't be mad that he was weighing it now, given that. "And anyway, I'm stronger than he is."

 

"Then _how could you feel anything for him?"_ He's near shouting now, but he drops his voice into a choked whisper to show that it's not anger, exactly, but Rey can see that he's struggling not to feel totally betrayed by this. "After what he did, Rey. _How?"_

 

She didn't have an answer, so she didn't say anything. She just lowered her head.

 

"Is that what you were thinking about when you heard what Rose was saying?"

 

"You were right," Rey said finally. "I should go tell Leia that it worked."

 

"Rey," he said in warning. But she had already broken away from him. "Rey, wait!" He tried to follow after her, but she was already turning away.

 

"Finn, I'm sorry." She meant that, at least. But he clearly needed time to cool off. "I should really go find her. But I'm so glad Rose is doing better. Make sure you let Poe know too, alright?"

 

She pulled away and disappeared down the hallway to find Leia, but she could not forget the feeling of a hand reaching up and gripping her heart to _squeeze._ It made her breath short.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Still working on making progress on this, obviously, but if you're interested in soliciting me with prompts for one-shots, I'm ~scavengertrash on Tumblr!


	4. General

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey turns to Leia for guidance and maternal comfort.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have a lot of feelings about Leia and Ben's relationship and you're dying feeling like they'll go without being actualized in Ep IX because of Carrie Fisher's death, clap your hands.

Briefing Leia was easy and blessedly brief. Rey had to admit that she was nervous it would escalate, somehow, and turn into a demand for some further answers just like it had with Finn. But if Leia had questions about what Rey had or hadn't asked, she did not voice them. _Good,_ Rey thought.

 

Still, when Leia got up to leave, Rey couldn't help feeling like there was something else that had gone unsaid. Panic jumped up in her throat, and she frowned.

 

"General," Rey said, drawing her attention. "What did you tell Finn and Poe about what I shared with you?"

 

"Only what they needed to know," Leia replied evenly. "That you had been in contact with my son, and that you might be able to reestablish that contact through the Force to gain intelligence about the First Order."

 

"Oh."

 

"Do you wish I'd said something else?"

 

"I assumed that you had. Wrongly," she notes. Obviously. "It wasn't your job to say anything else." Not as a general of the Resistance, certainly. That was the sort of thing a mother might do. Rey had to stop thinking of her that way; she had her parents, and they weren't heroes. They were nothing — no, worse than nothing. They were scum.

 

"Everything else seemed too personal to be up to me." Leia sighed, "But I've been wrong before." Rey shook her head, but Leia continued. "No, don't argue. You wouldn't be the first person to tell me I thought too much like a General."

 

"You _are_ a General," Rey pointed out.

 

"And a damn good one," Leia agreed. "I know that."

 

"So what's the problem?"

 

"The problem is that I forgot how to be anything else." Leia drummed up a thin smile, forced and failing. "You asked what Han was like with me, but not what I was like with him. Or with Ben."

 

The way she said his name reeked of disuse. It sounded awkward in Leia's mouth, like she hadn't called him by that name in a terribly long time. Too long. More and more, Rey realized that she hadn't even begun to plumb the depths of the difficulties this family faced.

 

She had seen them for so long as heroes, icons, myths — but the war had stolen too much from all of them.

 

"It's not your fault," Rey insisted.

 

"It was Finn, right?" Leia took a stab, and Rey nodded to affirm it. "What did he say?"

 

"Nothing you want to hear." Realizing how doleful and ominous that sounded, Rey furthered, "He's your son. This can't be easy for you either."

 

"Do I seem like the kind of person who cares about what's easy?" Leia settled back into her seat and waved a hand to draw the answers out of Rey. "Come on. Out with it."

 

"I'm worried that the feelings I have for him will cloud my judgment," Rey told her. "It hurt to see him, to be so close to him, because of those feelings. When I told Finn that, he … didn't take it well."

 

"And?"

 

"What do you mean and?"

 

"Finn is just one person, Rey. I know that you care about him; if you can care about my son, you can care about anybody. But he doesn't see the world the way that you do."

 

"That's not true. Finn and I are actually quite alike, we both—"

 

"Grew up badly. I understand that." It seemed a callous way to put it, but Rey's bristling did nothing to dissuade Leia from finishing. "The Force is something else. I saw the way it affected my brother, the way it affected Ben. Your focus is bigger than any of us. It has to be."

 

"I'm not sure my feelings for him have anything to do with the Force."

 

"Don't be stupid."

 

"Excuse me?" Rey balked.

 

"The Force made you. Both of you — no, that's not me trying to shirk responsibility. Han and I screwed that idiot up plenty all by ourselves. But that was all part of it." Leia settled back. "Luke believed that too once. And if you had bothered to crack open those books you brought back from him, you might see it for yourself."

 

"You really believe that?"

 

"I have to." Leia shook her head. "If Ben can feel something for you, we might be able to get him back."

 

That was when Rey realized that Leia, too, had been grappling with her feelings and whether or not they were interfering with her judgment. Both of them shared the same concerns. Rey reached over to cover Leia's hand with hers, a soft flutter of a smile on her lips, offering back the reassurance that Leia had so often given to her.

 

Hope didn't come easily in times like these. They'd have to give it to one another.

 

"People are going to question that," Leia continued. "You can't."

 

"Finn is my best friend," Rey said. Her _only_ friend. He'd done for her what no one else had done, meant to her more than anything else in the world, and — "I'm supposed to just be alright with the fact that he thinks I'm a monster?"

 

"He doesn't think you're a monster." Leia didn't look concerned. _Lucky her._ "Even if he's confused right now, the parts of you that made it possible for you to see the good in Ben are exactly what Finn likes about you. He'll see that. Just … give him some space." As she said this, Leia cringed a bit. She didn't think Rey's chances right now were very good either. "And let me know if you hear from my son again. I'd like to know where he's moving, so we can keep off his radar."

 

"This could just as easily lead him to us," Rey warned. "You're playing with fire."

 

"We both are," Leia conceded. "But we're not going to win this war by being afraid to fight."

 

As they parted ways, something Leia said stuck with her — _If Ben can feel something for you, we might be able to get him back._ Rey had not put much thought towards what Kylo felt for her. It seemed obvious after he had tried to shoot her out of the sky on Crait, but then he'd turned around and offered her a place at his side again the moment they'd been in one another's company.

 

That meant this bond was affecting him just as much as it was affecting her still. _Like calls to like,_ he'd said. She didn't need to be afraid of him when he was equally afraid of her. She'd thought of herself as coming into these talks with a disadvantage, but the truth was that she at least knew what she wanted from them.

 

Did Kylo?


	5. Sympathy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux reports the discovery of Resistance sympathizers to Kylo Ren, forcing him into an uncomfortable position given his recent reconnection with Rey. While the conflict stirs deeper within the Supreme Leader, Rey is further torn between her loyalties to her friends, her cause, and her feelings for Kylo.

The atmospheric controls aboard the _Judgment_ maintained a crisp 65 degrees in the living spaces, primarily to keep the droids and other electronic equipment from malfunctioning. Kylo Ren took advantage of it for his own meditation exercises.

 

When Snoke was still alive, Kylo rarely meditated. Snoke had discouraged it as something weak and fruitless. But Snoke wasn't alive anymore. And Kylo Ren had ceased to take his doctrine without question. As far as he was concerned, all doctrine should be questioned. He found no peace in it, though — be it because he had gone too long unpracticed, or because of Snoke's influence, or because of what Skywalker had once said about him being too chaotic to calm himself. It didn't work.

 

In fact, for these reasons, his own failure only frustrated him further. Before Hux ever walked into his meditation chamber, a dark space filled with dimly glowing red lights, Kylo was already irate. When he felt the General's signature grow nearer, he found a deeper, darker depth to his temper.

 

The door slid open, welcoming the pale white lights of the hall into his chamber, chasing out the shadows. Kylo looked up from where he sat on a single folded mat in the center of the room, considering Hux's silhouette. It hardly did anything to block out the light from the doorway. Kylo masked his grimace against the sudden brightness with a scowl.

 

"I asked to be left alone."

 

He'd needed that, after seeing _her_ again. The tremble in her voice haunted him, playing over and over again; _I'm afraid of placing my hope in you again._

 

He'd spent weeks certain that she had given up, turned her back on him on the Supremacy that day, and as a result, he'd thrust himself deeper into the poison of the darkness. It was the only belonging he'd ever find. Rey's compassion, his connection to her, they had only been lies meant to distract him from his own power and purpose.

 

Seeing her upset that conviction. Dizzied him, put him back off-balance. Just as she always did.

 

"Of course, Supreme Leader." Even when using his title, Hux regarded him with open disdain. The General would be the first issue he dealt with once the Resistance was eliminated, but now that he had adopted Snoke's position, he could see what Snoke had seen in him. He made a powerful attack dog, even if he was often short-sighted and quick to choke himself on his leash. His command over the fleet, his ability to manipulate and savage the other officers into staying in line, could not be questioned. "I would not interrupt your …" He looked around as though to dismiss all the superstition of the Force with one shrewd expression. Hux wisely chose to leave that sentence unfinished. "But there is a matter that requires your immediate attention."

 

Kylo stared at him openly, impassive but impatient. Anger simmering just beneath the surface, tightly coiled. He would not ask. Hux would not engage him in expending more effort than the General was worth. It would only inflate his ego.

 

"I'm told some of the leadership in Naboo has been providing supplies to the Resistance. Vested their interests in a lost cause." Hux sneered the words. "Not entirely surprising, given their history. But the rebel sympathizers responsible for this error in judgment have been rooted out."

 

"Who?"

 

A flicker of something crossed Hux's face, barely identifiable. He was both disgusted and smug to see that _who_ mattered at all to Kylo. It showed a weakness. Kylo imagined choking that expression off of his face, but ground his teeth instead and swallowed it. _After,_ he told himself. When Hux had outlived his usefulness.

 

Hux huffed and opened some file on his datapad.

 

"The art collector Renyor Koth, who we've known to be collecting Republic propaganda for some time; the gungan boss Bloonan; Veetya Reis, the granddaughter of Queen Neeyutnee — unsurprising, given that lineage; and a handful of servants and stewards to each of them."

 

"How many?"

 

"Twelve in total, Supreme Leader." A pause hung there in the air between them before Hux pressed, "I advise we eliminate them before the disease can spread. Make an example."

 

"I did not ask for your counsel, General. I will never ask for your counsel." Kylo got to his feet; at his full height, he loomed over Hux, and he advanced in order to make that point clear. He was barefoot, unarmored, and unarmed, but Hux knew better than to be misled by these images. He had felt Kylo's power before. "Take them into custody. Let their executions be held privately on Naboo." A wide, catlike smile spread across Hux's features. It showed his teeth. "There will be no mercy for any of those who ally themselves with insurgents. Do not waste my time with this a second time."

 

"Any of them, Supreme Leader?"

 

The question prickled the hairs on the back of Kylo's neck. He knew why he was digging his heels in on this line, the hurt that had caused it, the betrayal. Why did Hux consider it worthy of note? The impossibility of Rey's assassination of Snoke and subsequent escape hung in the air between them — unaddressed, but of apparent interest to Hux. Kylo made no comment on it.

 

He knew what he was doing. She had forced his hand.

 

"Any."

 

Hux put his datapad away and nodded his head — all efficiency and obedience, feeling as though he had gotten his way. Satisfying him did not sit well with Kylo. Not at all. But Hux was quick in excusing himself back through the door he'd come through, and Kylo was left alone in the frustrating silence and darkness of his meditation chamber once again, his eyes maladjusted for the intrusion.

 

Distracted as he was by the internal war his emotions fought betewen regret and anger, he nearly missed the tunneling sound of compressing space that prickled his skin and heightened his awareness. Nearly.

 

"Why are you doing this?" He asked, voice low.

 

"I'm not." Rey replied simply. He turned to look at her then. She looked as vibrant and alive as she ever did, tan skin aglow with light that did not belong in this dark space he occupied, dark hair pulled half-up into a bun. Even the grease stains on her clothes could not lessen her.

 

He hated her for it. He wanted to tear that light from her, sunder it, break her down and possess whatever survived the process. To make her feel like he did.

 

"You are." He began to pace around her, a hungry animal searching for an opening. "You kept me out."

 

"Ben, I—"

 

"Ben Solo is dead. I killed him!" He snarled this as though it were a point of pride for him, some accomplishment, and he watched the heartbreak flicker openly across her face. As though even now, she did not hesitate in her vulnerability with him. It only insulted him further. "I'll kill you too."

 

"You won't."

 

"Why did you let me back in?" He paced closer to her, crowding her space. She lifted her chin, stubborn, strong, but he could see the way she retreated inward from the threat. Finally. Finally, she flinched from him, even if it was so thinly perceivable that it might well have been imagined by him. "The truth."

 

"I missed you."

 

There were tears in her eyes. Another lie. Another manipulation, a way to control him, steer him. He —

 

No.

 

Reaching out across the bond, he could feel her mind, and though her emotions churned between guilt and shame and fury, he could sense no deceit there. Slowly, certainly, the anger drained out of him. The flood waters of his rage receded, leaving him empty, revealing the hollow spaces that her leaving had opened up in him.

 

"Then you shouldn't have left," he arrived at that point bitterly. No amount of regret changed what she had done. She'd turned him away. Rejected him. Spurned him.

 

"You should have come with me." Resolve burned behind her eyes as she spat out those words. Rey had something savage about her, feral and unguarded and spitting fury. Something that he understood. "I won't stop trying."

 

"You will." Of that he was certain. Everyone did, eventually.

 

"Is this what it's going to be?" Her voice cracked as she asked it. "Me, trying to pull you back, while you try to convince yourself that you hate me?"

 

"I do hate you."

 

"No, you don't." She pulled her lips between her teeth, sniffing softly. It was hard for her to hold onto this truth, but she held on all the same. "You're afraid of me too."

 

"You seek to sabotage me, to undermine me." Kylo continued, snarling. "I will not soften myself to someone who has chosen to be my enemy."

 

"I didn't choose that. You did."

 

They weren't getting anywhere.

 

"Where are you, Rey?" He pivoted, reaching for academic interest. She was sweating, like she'd done some kind of physical labor. Grease stains on her clothes meant they'd likely landed somewhere — for repairs? Maybe. "Naboo?"

 

Puzzlement. Nothing but puzzlement both in her expression and on the other side of the bond. She tried to suppress it, but she wasn't quick enough. An interesting detail to this puzzle, one he would parse through later.

 

"You first."

 

A smug expression twisted his mouth. Of course. She knew they were enemies, still, and regarded him as such despite what she spewed of hope and sorrow. Strangely it didn't feel like a victory in his chest. The muscles there tightened like they were bracing around a wound.

 

And then she was gone.

 

 

Rey wiped her hands across he cheeks to smear away the tears that left her face swollen and red. She sat hidden in the cargo hold of the _Falcon_ , fooling herself that it would be easier somehow if only Chewie could hear her, but she didn't feel any better for it.

 

She felt just as filthy and disgusting as she would have felt in the base, surrounded by Leia and Poe and whatever other leadership they had scrounged up to join the cause. They hadn't told her. They wouldn't tell her anything anymore. And it was for nothing. _Nothing._ He didn't trust her, and he was right not to.

 

But he missed her too. She'd seen it there in his eyes, and that made it all harder.

 

His crries of 'traitor' threatened to sink in; they resonated so deeply with Finn's accusations. But she could not be a traitor to them both. If she chose the Resistance over Ben, then she was not a traitor to them; if loving Ben made her a traitor to the Resistance, then surely she had not betrayed him. It wasn't possible to have ruined both.

 

Was it?

 

Rey pulled up her hood before she stepped out of the _Falcon._ The weather on this planet was fine — Naboo? Was he right? — But she didn't want anyone to see her. They might stop her and seek conversation, and her mouth was dry with her own disappointment and shame.

 

The conflict had been as strong in him as ever. She could see how it was his perceived hurt that drove him, churned into rage by the Dark Side. Did that mean he could be saved? Hope grappled with realism in her chest. It couldn't be her focus. The Resistance had to be her focus, and they needed information.

 

She found Leia inside the base, hovering over Lieutenant Connix at the scanners. They went quiet on Rey's approach. Connix turned off her screen with an apologetic look. Rey smiled, a bare bones thing that understood, however reluctantly, that she could not be involved.

 

"I'm sorry," she told Leia. "He didn't reveal anything."

 

"Tell me what was said," Leia said, reaching one hand around to touch Rey's shoulder and steering her up towards the commander's deck.

 

They ascended the stairs in silence, Rey steeping herself in the warmth of the motherly touch in hopes that it would salve the wounds her lies had left her with. When they reached the top of the stairs, Leia opened a door behind the deck, which opened into her cabin. It was larger by far than the other bunks, but still spartan and filled only with essentials.

 

When the door shut, Rey repeated as much as she could verbatim, but for the fragment in which she admitted that she missed him. She could not offer that up to Leia. Already, her place in the Resistance was in question. She was the means by which the First Order could learn more about them. She had to be handled like a bomb. She would not draw her own personal loyalties into further question, like she had with Finn.

 

Leia listened with an impassive attention that reminded Rey that _she_ was the rebel and the spy, the one who could separate her emotions so rigorously from what needed to be done. Some part of Rey craved the ease of that, but another pitied her. To be so cut off from her passions, her own desires … had Leia not martyred enough of her life to this cause already? Did she not deserve some selfishness?

 

"Is it true?" Rey asked when she was done.

 

"Is what true?"

 

"Are we on Naboo?" Better to be blunt about it, Rey figured. "How did he know that?"

 

"We're not," Leia said. "But there are Resistance cells there, people who have pledged us their aid upon hearing of what happened on Crait."

 

"We _lost_ on Crait."

 

"But Luke Skywalker returned. The Jedi returned. And word moves fast. Hope can be like a wildfire, that way." Leia said all of this matter-of-factly, as though Luke were not her brother, as though he had not given his life for the cause. "It was the spark we needed."

 

"Then Ben knows about our allies," Rey realized. "What are we going to do?"

 

"I'll send a team to move them to a safe location. We had suspected that they were too aggressive with their efforts to recruit more support to our cause, that they might have revealed themselves to the wrong people. This is only confirmation."

 

"So I was right," Rey said. "I gained nothing. We learned nothing."

 

"If we can get them out in time, your conversation with my son saved the lives of our allies. Knowing that the First Order will be ruthless in hunting down Resistance sympathizers tells us how to be more careful in the future with how we move our information and recruit our people. I'd say we gained a hell of a lot." Leia shook her head and covered Rey's hands with her own. "I know that what we're asking is hard on you. But it's necessary. You might have saved the lives of our contacts on Naboo."

 

Despite these heartening words, Rey couldn't help but feel an acute sense of loss. Had she done that? Had she saved anyone? Objectively, Leia seemed to think so. So then why did she feel like she had lost something, instead?

 

"I'm going to prepare our fastest ship. I need you to get Poe and Rose, tell them we have a mission."

 

"Me? Are you sure?"

 

"Are you worried that I'm telling you details of our operations, Rey, or about facing your friends?" Rey wilted a little under that shrewd observation. Leia only smiled, though, and said, "Doing the kinds of things we have to do means learning how to face people after. Trust me. You'll feel better knowing than not knowing."

 

Unfortunately, that assurance didn't promise that Finn would change his mind about where they stood. Still. She knew that Leia had a point. Rey had spent enough of her life hiding from the hard truths about the people she loved. She squared her shoulders, straightened her back, and turned around to head out of the general's cabin.

 

Finn, Rose, and Poe were playing cards in the cafeteria. Sabacc. When Rey approached, Rose was explaining the rules with patience and diagrams, and Poe was trying to shuffle a hand into Finn's grip, saying, "You'll pick it up as you go, buddy. Come on."

 

"Uh—" Finn noticed Rey first.

 

The rest of them joined him in looking up at her, each of them perplexed. They didn't know what to say to her. They didn't have anything they _could_ say to her. Not about anything that mattered anyway. Finn had made that clear.

 

"Hi." Rey said, pulling up a chair.

 

"Hi, Rey," Rose was the first to adopt a smile. It didn't quite pretend nothing was wrong, but it did its best to cheer her up all the same. Rey appreciated that. It was authentic in its joy to see her, even if it didn't brush everything else under the rug. "Is everything okay?"

 

"Uh, Leia was asking for you guys."

 

"All of us?" Finn asked, hopeful. Rey shook her head.

 

"Poe and Rose. Something about a mission to Naboo. You'd better meet her in the hangar."

 

"Are you coming?" Poe asked, getting to his feet and pulling on his jacket. Rey smiled up at him, grateful for the hope that he demonstrated, but … She shook her head to that too. "Hey, sooner or later, right?" He clapped a hand on her shoulder. "I'll wait my turn to see the Last Jedi in action. You're doing important work. But if you see that dick before we're back, tell him Poe Dameron told him where he can shove it."

 

Rey laughed at that. Finn did not.

 

"Yeah, Rey, the stuff you're doing is important." Rose got to her feet. "So, uh, good luck."

 

"Thank you." Rey's smile was weaker for Finn's moody disconnect, but she still found it. "Be careful, won't you?"

 

"You too." Poe kissed the top of her head as he might a sister, then grabbed his hand around Rose's shoulders and led her out of the cafeteria.

 

Silence descended over Finn and Rey, an uncomfortable thing that churned and roiled with all the things they had not said to one another.

 

"Naboo? You get that from him?" Finn asked. "Did he offer it?" There was a strained sense of hope in his voice. "Was he trying to help?"

 

"Please, I don't want to fight."

 

"So he wasn't." Finn drove that home. "He wasn't trying to help."

 

"No."

 

"Because he doesn't care about you, or Leia, or any of it. Because he's a _bad guy,_ Rey."

 

Tears burned behind her eyes, brought on primarily by the fact that he had every reason to believe that. Every external cue sent the same message. Kylo Ren worked hard on that image. He wouldn't let it falter, wouldn't let anyone else see behind the mask. He may have stopped wearing the helmet, but its ridges were imprinted now into his skin. Kylo Ren had become the man. But Rey could see past it. Rey could feel his conflict, knew there was more there. She was certain.

 

How could she explain that to Finn? To _anyone_ who didn't feel the Force, as she did?

 

"You haven't told Poe, have you?" She asked this in a watery voice. It was confirmation only. She could see it in the way Poe acted. He'd never have solicited that from his _torture buddy_ if he knew the truth.

 

"No," Finn sighed. "I don't get it. I don't wanna get it. And it's none of my business."

 

"I want it to be." Rey said heatedly, "I want you to understand."

 

"Then tell me why. What is it about him, huh? He's a _monster._ A killer."

 

"He's afraid. And alone, and hurt, and he feels like the world is out to get him."

 

"Yeah, I can see why you'd want to get with that." Finn's reply was flat, unforgiving. "You gotta gimme more than that, Rey."

 

"He killed Snoke," she whispered finally. "He killed his master. For me. To save us both. He's ready, Finn, just like you were. He wants to turn his back on this, he just needs a way out."

 

"That's funny, 'cause the way I see it, the only one keeping him there is _him._ " Finn got to his feet. "I'm done with this. If you want to see him as a victim, I'm not gonna stop you. But I don't. I saw the kind of man he is firsthand when I was a stormtrooper. I still remember that he's the one who gave me this." He pulled his shirt collar aside to reveal a purple scar burned into his collarbone. "Who tortured Poe. Who tortured _you!"_

 

"I care about him." Rey said finally, simply. "I needed someone, and he was there, and I care about him. If that makes you think I'm some kind of monster—"

 

"I don't think you're a monster, Rey." Finn put his hand on her shoulder. "But I'm scared for you."He tried to say something else, opened his mouth, but ultimately he just turned away from her. He couldn't put it to words, and from where Rey was sitting, it looked like he didn't think it was worth it to try. A sadness descended on her and she slumped at the cafeteria table as Finn walked away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Confession: I sat on this chapter all this time because I thought I had posted it and y'all were waiting on the next one. So, good news, the next one is written and should be on a reasonable posting schedule. I'm gonna try to get to a place to post weekly on Tuesdays.
> 
> Next week I earn my E rating. (Also, at the time of posting this, there are 69 kudos, and I'm 12 years old all over again.)
> 
> If you like what you see here, feel free to prompt me on tumblr at ~scavengertrash.


	6. Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Kylo connect to one another while they're asleep.

The backwash carried silt and black sand back down the shore, exposing the glow of pale bone and shell in the beach. Rey lay among them, shifting her gaze upwards to the sky as she waited for the tide to carry her away. With each lap of the ocean, she sank deeper and deeper into the sand. Soon she would be submerged, and it would be quiet.

 

_There is no death, only the Force._

 

One of the tenets that Threepio had translated from the texts that sat in a stack beside her bunk.

 

Her bunk … her bunk where?

 

She couldn't remember how she got here, to this beach, with the sun warming her skin. It didn't seem to matter though. She was there now. Better to enjoy it.

 

Light fluffy clouds moved over the sun in what felt like seconds but must have been hours. The breeze chilled her through her drenched clothes. Even just her tunic shirt and trousers felt too heavy on her body, weighing her down.

 

When the sun had sunk towards the horizon and clouds had gathered in force to block it from her, Rey saw that _he_ was there. He was always there. She reached for him, where he blotted out the light, beckoning him down to her. Reluctance stung her, lancing across their connection. Still she offered her hand, and eventually, he took it, lying down beside her.

 

The water had receded. Like so many things he had chased it away too.

 

"Are you real?" She asked. "Are you here?"

 

"No," he told her because it was what she needed to hear.

 

"Good."

 

They were on each other then, a single shadow of mangled limbs. Slow movements, yet sharp and hungry. In their push and pull, they blurred into one another, and though she could not remember tugging at his clothes, soon they were bare, the sand on her back, with him moving against her.

 

Rey hissed her pleasure into the slope of his shoulder, a new ocean pooling between her thighs — for him, because of him, only him. Some of this she must have whispered to him because he repeated to her as though rhythmically, "I know, I know."

 

The storm broke above them, a crack of thunder. It hummed in her bones, joined with the current that brought her nerves alive, made her body thrum.

 

"Please," she whispered as she felt him slipping away, but he was already lost to her, and a wave was coming in, stirred up by the storm winds. It swallowed her and washed her out to sea.

 

* * *

Rey awoke alone.

 

The base was quiet still.

 

Sweat stuck to her back, slicked her forehead, and a telling dampness made her underwear cling to her. Reluctantly, she slipped her hand down into them. Her intention was to adjust herself, make herself more comfortable so she could get back to sleep, but … Arousal slicked the path of her fingers over her swollen folds, and her breath hitched.

 

No one would know. It wasn't about him. These excuses allowed her to nudge her hand in slow, circular movements around the raw nub that ached for acknowledgment. Those waves from her dream returned, threatening to swallow her up. This time, though, they were warm, filling her body by inches.

 

The whole dream felt more like an impression than anything concrete to grapple onto. Her fault, she thought. She hadn't the experience to imagine properly what he'd feel like on top of her, inside of her. But some details stuck — those that she knew. The warmth of his hand in hers, of his breath on her face.

 

Her hips rocked up against her fingers and she slipped two straight inside, pumping away at herself. Would it feel like this? Would he be bigger? Make her feel fuller? Rey's breathing grew short, and though recognizing that she had allowed him to pervade her fantasies inclined her to stop, she had long since passed the point of no return.

 

The heel of her palm rubbed at that bundle of nerves while she fucked herself up onto her fingers, a desperation to her movements. She wanted to free herself from thoughts of him. They would only cause her pain, in the long run. He had promised her that.

 

But she didn't believe him.

 

Something snapped in her; her will, she thought. Because then she was imagining Ben in this bunk with her, his fingers buried to the knuckle inside of her while his thumb worked over her clit. He looked beautiful. Soft, but not in the same way he had aboard the Supremacy. Not afraid. Thankful. Reverent. She twisted and arched until she couldn't stand it anymore.

 

Rey rolled her fingers back and forth over herself, setting a prompt and furious pace, and it took only seconds from there for her to convulse, a twitching mess of fluid and shame on her bunk. She rolled onto her side then and slept wet.

 

She did not dream again.

 

* * *

 

That dream had not belonged to him.

 

Kylo Ren lay in his bunk, heart racing, and stared up into the endless dark of his quarters. From an intellectual standpoint his mind could make sense of it — it stood to reason that the random persistence of this bridge Snoke had created between them might pull them together when they were both unconscious, as easily as when they were awake.

 

Yes, it was inevitable, dictated reason.

 

Yet it troubled him. The way she had seen him, the effects he'd levied upon the landscape of her dream, and the open access she had to him. He could still feel the black sand under his palms, grains which dug into him violently as he drove into her.

 

He had the answer he'd been searching for. That should have been all that mattered. Fleeing thoughts to the contrary, he pushed himself out of his bunk and headed for the refresher, where the cold water helped him soothe and forget his body's response to her affection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think!


	7. Interlude

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose and Poe go on a mission to Naboo. Meanwhile, Hux has a meeting on Cato Neimoidia that he'd rather Kylo Ren didn't know about.

"You never told me how you and Finn met," Poe said as he primed the engines on the tiny transport shuttle. With the final inspections done (it felt damn good to have a mechanic as his copilot, given the junk they'd unearthed in this base), they just had to wait for the final OK for take-off from the ground. Which really meant Kaydel, now head of communications, working double duty as a runway cone.

Rose finished stowing the manuals, clambered up from the jump seat, and buckled herself into the copilot's chair. She looked eager. Bright-eyed. At a glance, it'd be hard to guess she had spent the past few weeks laid up in the medical bay. Whatever reservations he'd summoned up about her going out too quickly (which had gone without comment because, well, they needed the bodies regardless) were assuaged on seeing her work. She was ready. _Probably tired of being treated like an invalid._

"Does it matter?" Rose shook her head, pulling a face at the notion. "The same way you meet anyone around here."

"Yeah. Right." Poe pursed his lips and glanced away. "Just trying to make conversation." 

"Why do you think the General sent the two of us?" She pulled the strap on her belt and settled back into the seat, grabbing onto a lever to her right that would open the fuel intakes. "I thought she was grooming you."

"No, I did my hair myself." He offered the joke in all seriousness. Rose's eyes burned into him, but in that moment, Kaydel waved them on, and he flicked the switch to start the engines. "Ready for our trip, honey?"

The engines roared as he lifted them out of the hangar bay, Rose at his side monitoring fuel levels. It wasn't an X-wing. Shuttles lacked the zip. In that way, Poe was disappointed that his first trip out of this base was such a letdown. But looking down over the planet, he was still relieved to be leaving home.

It was hard, being on Yavin IV again, not telling his dad how close they were. He'd be glad to reach Naboo.

* * *

 

 

No one liked spending time on Cato Neimoidia. Oh, it was wealthy, certainly. Lush. But the neimoidians had a long-standing grudge with the First Order, and no one wearing its badge would want to be caught dead on its surface. It was, in that sense, the diametric opposite of Canto Bight. At least the barons there did not care who was purchasing their goods.

Hux had replaced his uniform with formalwear for the trip. Despite the persistent cultural attitudes that begrudged the First Order for hindering their trade routes and destroying a number of Republic-controlled planets that had paid them generously, there were many neimoidians who would be happy to provide him with what he needed.

Teb Maak had a palatial estate across one of the fog-shrouded rope bridges into the eastern mountains. Hux's escort, a lieutenant, warned him that they would need to walk it. He'd come this way before, he said. His family did business with the Maaks. And so Hux allowed himself to be led, grimacing against the weather.

He hated to be out in nature. There were insects flitting around him, trying to sting him, and more buzzing in the hardy bushes sprawling out of the mountainsides. He slapped a gloved hand against his neck, crushing one as they came to the edge of the bridge.

Ten stories of curved lines and humming, glowing energy stretched up and disappeared into the cloudy sky before him. The Maak estate was state of the art, top of the line design, and a modern marvel. Balconies jutted from around the singular central pillar without drawing away from its elegance.

It was said that as larvae, the neimoidians scrabbled with each other over scarce supplies, and only those most skilled in hoarding resources for themselves survived. Hux could not claim to know if it was true or not, but certainly Teb Maak had proven himself quite the hoarder of wealth.

"Ah," said the General. "Civilization."

The house servants welcomed him in, took his coat, and guided him up to a balcony where drinks and food were provided. Both were rich. Hux abstained until Teb Maak joined him. He wore a thick, blue robe and a hat that rather looked like a star destroyer to Hux in the same color, but it could not offset the sickly green of his thick, scaled hide.

Worst were his eyes, horizontal slits that Hux could never properly read. But Teb greeted him generously, and drank from his cup, and then Hux was happy to drink from his own. 

"You come here at an auspicious time," noted Teb. "I have heard your organization is under new leadership."

"As the result of an assassination," Hux snarled. Teb knew that, of course. And still he had the gall to call Snoke's execution fortuitous.

"Change must often be forced." Teb waved a hand to one of his guards, and a forest of lights glowed in the foliage beneath them. After a moment, Hux noticed the lights formed a circle, and large creatures were being herded into that circle. It was dim from up here, though, too dim to recognize them easily. "Assassination is one vehicle to achieving that. I assume that it why you've come."

"The First Order is not about change. It requires stability. Consistency."

"And you believe the Supreme Leader does not offer this to you?"

"He is a child." And, to Hux's belief, a traitor. That would mean nothing to the neimoidians, however. "Throwing tantrums, expending resources, acting on his every infantile whim and changing moods from one moment to the next." 

"You know my price."

"I do." Hux finished his drink. "And you know my expectations for discretion."

"Your treason will be closely guarded."

Hux sneered as though to argue, but of course, he could not. Such were the manners of neimoidians, and one of many reasons he sought to avoid involvement with them at all costs. He got to his feet, all the same.

"You won't stay? The show is about to begin." Looking down into the dimly lit arena, Hux could now see the rancors snarling at one another. Three of them. "It's quite exhilarating. I find that once their shackles are removed, the rancors will not come for their captors. They'd sooner tear each other apart."

Sure enough, their shackles were removed, and the rancors went for one another rather than rallying together to fight the smaller prey that had pushed them to it. It unnerved Hux, though he could not put his finger on why. Violence had never bothered him. It was not the bloodiness of the fight. He shook his head, and without taking his eyes off the bout, Teb waved for his guards to lead Hux from the estate.

Flowers bloomed on Naboo. They always did, around the elections. At least, that was what Veetya Reis' steward told them as he led them into her audience chamber. Queens of Naboo were elected from the royal family, and so while Veetya was technically Neeyutnee's granddaughter, she was not guaranteed a tenure on the throne. 

She was, however, fabulously wealthy and the forefront contender.

"Lady Reis is holding a party this evening," explained the steward as the door opened. He looked down at them as if to scorn their worn and greasy clothes. Rose in particular was covered in engine oil, but Poe just sort of straightened his collar and nodded, as if that solved it. "Of course."

The steward, it seemed, had been hoping that they might wait until the morning. But this couldn't wait. It was too important.

So they emerged into a room full of nobles and donors in fancy dresses eating fancy foods. Rose looked like she hadn't seen real fruit in months, and if all she'd touched were the rations they'd been suffering with, that might be true. A groan slipped out of her.

"Stay focused," Poe said. "We're here for one thing."

"Can't we rescue their food too?"

Poe laughed at that. There was no helping it. Maybe she hadn't meant it as a joke, but it gave Poe at least some understanding of what Finn saw in her. She was honest, just like Rey was. Blunt and easy to get along with. Some part of him wished she wasn't. He couldn't help thinking that this would be easier if he could just find something to hate about her.

"Come on." He clapped Rose on the shoulder and led her towards the center of the room.

Veetya was beautiful. She had dark, ruddy skin and a full face. Her lips were painted a neon shade of green. Once, Naboo had been all warm colors, classical and rich, but in the years of the Empire, it had grown bolder, louder, as though in response to all the misery in the galaxy Nabooan fashion had insisted on drowning all that grey and steel and grief out with color.

When they approached, a man that Poe belatedly recognized as Renyor Koth was complimenting her choice in color.

"It really brings out the cooler undertones in your skin," he said.

"Thank you," she commented primly. "But I'd rather not talk about colors just now. What about our —" She stopped, staring flatly at Poe and Rose as they interrupted.

A tense moment of silence passed.

"Uh," Poe said, glancing between them. "Can we take this somewhere private?"

Renyor looked like he might burst into laughter, but Veetya was obviously ready to burst from the sheer power of her fury. That was, until she looked at Rose, who had shrunk to half her already slight size beside Poe.

"Who is she?"

"Me?" 

"Her?"

"Yes," said Veetya. "You, girl." Naturally. Even the soon-to-be queen of Naboo loved her. Poe tried not to let it grate on him. It was good news for the mission. It'd make things easier. "You have the most beautiful eyes." She looked at Renyor. "Doesn't she?"

Poe didn't see it. He squinted at Rose's face, confused, but Rose didn't look nearly so abashed. His gaze dropped and he spotted the ring on her finger.

Damn. She was clever.

"Yes," Renyor agreed. "I'm sorry, this is terribly forward of me, but would you allow me to paint you? I collect beautiful things, and you are —"

"Yeah," Poe interrupted before Rose got a chance to talk. "Yeah, sure, you can paint her all freaking night if you want to. I've already got a buyer for it. So come on. Privacy?"

Renyor and Veetya exchanged a disdainful look, but together the four of them hastened into her private study, where Renyor asked a servant to bring him a canvas and easel.

"I thought you were kidding about the painting," Poe said. 

"Of course you did." Rose looked insulted by it, but he just scowled. 

"You really wanna do this? Now?"

"Enough," Veetya said. The doors were closed. Right down to business, then, no matter what Renyor had done to establish this as a social call. She strode across the room and addressed Rose as she said, "You should not have come here. At a time like this, I can't afford the contact."

"They already know, Your Highness." Rose blurted it out. "Our intelligence suggests you've been discovered. You need to come with us, for your safety." 

"My election is in five days," Veeta replied. "You cannot expect me to abandon my people on the mere suggestion of—"

"It's not a suggestion." Poe sounded impatient. Veetya looked like she might kill him if he spoke another word, but Renyor was listening. "If you want to die for your people, there are better ways to do it. Smarter ways. You don't have to wait around like a sitting womprat for the First Order to tag you."

"We didn't get a list of names," Rose said. "But they're planning to move against Naboo as a Resistance stronghold. We need to get the both of you out of here. Bloonan too, and any of your staff who knows."

"They will not care who on my staff knows," Veetya's voice was cold. "The First Order will execute them for liars and traitors anyway."

"Maybe," Poe admitted. "But at least they won't learn anything about the Resistance."

It was a cold approach. They all knew it. Silence swept in, and just in time because the servant had returned with Renyor's painting tools. He accepted them with charisma and grace, then shut the door behind them and invited Poe to help him set them up.

"My back," he explained. Poe begrudgingly complied, and Rose sat down with Veetya on the chaise.

"If you'll let us use some of your ships, I can disable their comms systems. We can get out as many people as you think we need to. But only those you trust." Rose frowned. "If you haven't told them, though, I think there's a reason, isn't there?"

Veetya didn't look happy about it. She studied her folded hands, frowning.

"You are asking me to gamble lives. To let my people die for me, and not the other way around."

"No. I'm asking you to live for your people." Rose reached out to cover Veetya's hand with her own. "Dying is easy. But we still need you in this fight, and so do they."

Poe looked over in time to see the would-be queen wiping away her tears. It was an ugly thing they were asking her to do. He knew that. But Rose, it appeared, was the only one who had been able to get her to see the beauty in it. The necessity. It made him feel like —

Well, like maybe she had something he didn't. The heart of it, instead of just the bullheaded will.

"She's quite wise, your partner," Renyor noted, as if agreeing with Poe's silent observations. 

"Yeah," Poe agreed. He tried to make it sound nonchalant. "Wait, what?"

"The way you look at her …" Renyor looked surprised. "The two of you aren't together?"

At that, Poe could only laugh. 

Together the four of them settled on a plan. Veetya went out to find the nobility and servants who knew — there were more of them than Poe had anticipated — and told them that they needed to come see Koth's work. It became a point of gossip and intrigue, but the rest of the partygoers felt certain that they'd see him unveil it eventually.

Rose, meanwhile, had rigged one of Veetya's communication hubs to reach the Gungans. Boss Bloonan suggested that he would be able to meet them with no less than sixty gungans before the night was over.

"Sixty?!" Poe dropped his voice to repeat, "What the hell are we supposed to do with _sixty_ gungans?"

"He told his council and advisors!" She held up her hands. "You're shooting the messenger."

"I'm not shooting anyone yet." But for Poe, 'yet' was the keyword. "No, no, you're right. This is good news. We've got allies." And allies meant fighters. That'd help, given that they were all going to wind up going to war sooner or later. "Tell him to bring whatever he's got that can leave the atmosphere."

All in all, between Veetya and Bloonan, they gathered six new ships. Enough to fit all hundred refugees they were smuggling out with them once the partygoers had mostly retired or burned themselves out. They took a back stairwell out of the old Reis estate, the refugees going first to meet Bloonan on an airfield miles south, near an expansive lake.

Poe barred Rose's path.

"What are you doing?" she huffed. "We have to go!" 

"Yeah, we do." Conflict warred in his expression. "You want to know why you were on this mission? I asked Leia to send you."

"Why would you do that?" 

Rose sounded uneasy, which meant chances were, she already knew why he wanted Leia to do that. They weren't so different. Rose, then, had noticed too. Good. That'd make this easier.

"Because I didn't want to leave you alone with Finn."

An ugly silence settled in between them then. It was out in the open now. No taking it back. Some part of Poe — the part that knew he was supposed to be better than this, that he had to be a leader and not get bogged down in personal drama with his fighters — felt guilty now that he'd committed to it. He could have just left it alone. He could have gritted his teeth and been happy for them. At least, he should have been able to, but the thought even now made his stomach turn.

"I know you have feelings for him. But so do I. I'm not going to throw in the towel just because you're …" Perfect? It seemed too defensive to say, but it was the truth. "Not that bad." He scoffed, looking away. "So, look. I just want it out in the open. You're alright. But now we're both on the same page."

"You …" Rose's face turned a steady shade of magenta. "Are you kidding me?! We have more important things to do right now than argue about who's got permission to care about Finn!"

She shoved him out of her way and barreled down the stairwell after the refugees.

Well. That could have gone better. 

The trouble, of course, was that she wasn't wrong. Poe kept thinking about that the whole way to the little airstrip where they met by the lake. The whole process went off without a hitch, but that didn't change the truth of what Rose had said. He'd let it distract him. If someone had been planning to jump Veetya and the others, it would have given them the perfect opportunity.

He needed to get his head clear, and stop letting his feelings get in the way of the mission.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry I took forever getting this chapter out. I'm not great at writing secondary characters, so it was a real challenge for me. On the bright side, it was a positive challenge; I came out of this with a single emotion about Armitage Hux, and I accidentally ship Rose/Poe now. 
> 
> More Rey and Kylo next time, though. Just had to lay some groundwork for it and get the B-plot moving. If you squint hard enough, I'm sure you can see what I'm getting at with the importance of Poe's arc in this section to the Rey and Kylo story.


	8. Assassin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Kylo reconnect through the Force during an emotional moment, Finn grapples with Rose and Poe's absence, and Hux's plan comes to fruition. 
> 
> Warnings in this chapter for ... I wouldn't call it dubcon because it's just talk, but it's on the skeevy end of the spectrum.

Two nights had passed since she dreamed of him, and when she sat with Finn on her bunk to eat their midday rations, Rey picking crumbs out of the bottom of the bag, sucking her fingers clean, the memory felt like a burdensome secret. The act itself was not the sort of thing anyone would obligate her to confess — no, that was private. The feelings it exposed, however, were the sort of thing that required negotiation with Leia.

 

She invented excuses for herself. Leia already knew how she felt. Her mind was clear, despite her desires. Rey wouldn't allow herself to be drawn into anything because of it. She had a Jedi's focus; a clear, and level head. These all served well to cover up the real reason she did not dare reach out to the General: she was afraid that Leia might ask her to act upon it for the Resistance's purposes instead of her own.

 

"Rey?" She snapped her head up to look at Finn. He'd been coming to her frequently in Rose and Poe's absence. Lonely, she was sure. It was nice. She'd been lonely too, waiting for someone to come back, even if she couldn't quite talk to him about how or why she understood his feelings. "You're out in orbit."

 

"Just thinking." She took the bag he'd set aside and turned it upside down over her mouth, shaking the crumbs down into her throat.

 

"Where are you putting all this food?"

 

"Meditation takes energy." She grouses, folding up both bags for later reuse. The Resistance wasn't in a position to waste. They'd pack them with new rations and send them out again. "I heard what you were saying," she added. "You need to have faith in them."

 

"Yeah." Finn frowned a little at that. It wasn't the advice he'd wanted, but she could tell he knew it was the truth. That was what counted. "I just wish I'd …"

 

Whatever he'd been ready to confess (and Rey was sure it was a confession, for the subject matter of Rose and Poe demanded one), he never got the chance. Connix burst into Rey's bunk then. She looked out of breath, but eager.

 

"They're back."

 

Connix's eyes landed on Rey just as Finn leapt to his feet. Both of them realized at the same time how careful they needed to be with the information that followed. Even Rose and Poe's status was up in the air, telling in how it meant the mission had gone. Finn opened his mouth, ready with an apology, some sympathetic condolence, but Rey waved it off.

 

"Go," she encouraged. "They'll be happy to see you."

 

Only when she had drawn her lips into a smile did Finn accept that insistence and leave with Connix. The open door allowed bustling noise from the hangar to slip in from the hallway of the barracks, which where long and steel and allowed the sounds to echo around and project. Rey had just gotten up to close it behind them when she heard the warped, thrumming sound of funneling space.

 

She hadn't even gotten a chance to be alone first.

 

"You're upset," he observed.

 

She hated the way he said it. Softly, like he cared. He hated it too — she could feel that, just like he could feel her grief over the valley that was forming between her and her friends. But he hated it because he hated how _weak_ it made him. Rey hated it for the hope it gave her.

 

"Yes. I am."

 

"… The stormtrooper?"

 

"Stop trying to read my mind," Rey snapped, rounding on him. He wasn't wearing his armor. Instead he wore black tanktop that exposed the pale curve of his muscled arms. Or perhaps it was something he always wore underneath. She didn't know, but she strangled the thought before it could imagine a path to undressing him. "Just because it's there doesn't mean you have to dig through it."

 

"You invited me," he reasoned, "when you reopened our connection." She did not get the opportunity to tell him that _speaking with him_ was not the same as soliciting his plundering of her mind, for he stepped forward then, searching her. "You still haven't told me why."

 

"Go away."

 

"Is that what you want?" He asked, leading.

 

" _Yes."_

 

"No."

 

Against Rey's hissing rejection, his voice was calm. Infuriatingly so. The gall of his contradiction widened her eyes, but there was an angry set to her brow to complement it that kept her expression from looking intrigued.

 

"I know what you've want." These words, he said simply. The complicated part was in the way he advanced on her, prowling like an animal. There's a door behind her. Maybe not for him— his hand never came up to rest on it — but for her. She pressed into it, and he in turn pressed into her. "You've shown me."

 

Across the bond came a flare of blinding desire. She shuddered with it, her lips parting. Though Rey refused to look down, she could _feel him._ The certainty came upon her like a wave, like revelation. He'd been there too, in her dream. He'd probably felt that brief flicker of curiosity even here in this place, pangs too weak to be called desire but cut from the same cloth.

 

"I'll give it to you," he told her. That molten feeling in her belly turned suddenly cold and she raised her hands to shove him away with feral force. The leverage of the door helped.

 

"Get off!" She snarled, chasing after him to shove him further even after he no longer caged her.

 

"Oh, I will." He looked down over her. In the swell of his pupils she saw hunger, possession, that distant and calm analysis that he always managed even when he should be compromised. "You will too." This declaration, this promise, dropped Rey's stomach. As though in recognition of how quickly she might sever the connection, he added — "But not until you beg me for it."

 

The bond brought them face-to-face, but it also unified their minds. In his, she could see the fuzzy, blurred shapes of just such a moment. He was considering it, thinking his way through what he wanted that to look like.

 

"I will _never_ —" She could not disavow begging entirely. He was gone, then. It seemed more and more that she was incapable of finishing a conversation with anybody. She was always cut off. Pressing her eyes shut, she slid to the floor of her bunk and folded her arms atop her knees, resting her forehead there. She did not weep — it would be a useless thing — but she drew long, steady breaths to try and calm herself.

 

Then she picked herself up off the floor and grabbed her comm to call Threepio for more help translating the Aionomica. Meditation would not be enough of a distraction, and she was not welcome in the hangar anymore. Too many missions flying in and out.

 

* * *

 

 

She was hiding something from him. The Dark Side fed on that paranoia, soaked it in, and churned it into a greater power. Kylo Ren closed his hand into a fist, the leather of his gloves creaking with the force of it before he put his fist through the instrument panel beside him. It sparked, and metal fragments tried to cling to his glove, sharp edges digging in. None of them got deep enough to cut his skin.

 

Too bad. It might have offered him clarity.

 

Once he might have ascribed it to the will of the Force that he continuously got pulled into her orbit like this, but the truth had revealed itself. This bond too was a mere manipulation, a lingering consequence of a master whose death had not tempered Kylo's resentment for him. Now Rey too used it as a means to twist and deceive him.

 

He would have liked to scoff at Luke, who had always hoped to sway him to some belief in the Cosmic Force, in the notion that it had a will and a purpose. _See,_ he would hiss, _See what the will of the Force really is? Only people with agendas._

 

He had never had a taste for politics, even when it had been the only way for him to justify clinging to his mother's apron strings. Yet somehow it had become his life. The same oily deception that had turned him off the Republic had manifested in his training with Snoke, and in his relationship with Rey — the only two places he had ever believed he had found safe harbor.

 

And now it had become central to his life.

 

Walking to the edge of the training room, he buckled the straps of his armored sleeves and slid into his tunic, tousling his hair with one hasty comb of his fingers that he might make himself presentable for the meeting he had made himself late for. The blood was still racing in his veins. Sweat stuck to his undershirt, soaked the hair at the base of his neck. Because of her.

 

Notifications scrolled across on his comm screen. Hux, furious that Kylo had made the decision to leave the Diktat from Corellia waiting. As far as Kylo was concerned, they could wait until the permafrost on Hoth melted. He would arrive when he was ready to. It had become a well-known fact that the Supreme Leader preferred his alone time to navigating his own political liaisons; if the leadership of a Core World wanted an audience, they would know to wait for it.

 

Kylo sent a message out — _Let the Diktat know I'll be there soon._ Better that it was not framed to reward the General's impatience with any implication that his sudden arrival was in any way a reaction to his prodding, or information delivered to him as a response to his expectations. Hux was not owed that, no matter what he believed. He was proving to be a problem, one Kylo had not yet decided how to deal with.

 

He finished fastening his tunic, clipped his lightsaber to his belt, and made his way up through the enormous halls of the Imperial Palace on Coruscant. Once a Jedi temple, the structure had been redesigned a half dozen times in every change of guard in the galactic government; The New Republic had wanted it to stand as a museum while they moved the seat of their power, but Snoke had seen it shaped to fit the First Order's needs, used it to show order in perpetuity.

 

It felt like a tomb instead of a temple, the ghosts of dead Jedi whom he'd never known haunting him. Was Luke among them? He did not like to think it.

 

He hated this place, hated occupying a relic of a broken past. It clouded his thoughts and awareness.

 

Stormtroopers thinned out in the hallways he took to reach the reception area. He would rather they did not see how this place plagued him, lest any of them take the path of FN-2187 due to a perceived weakness in their leader. In the far eastern corridor, he found himself completely alone but for the echo of his footsteps off the stone floors. Even the building materials of this place were antiquated.

 

A weight crashed into him from above — a weight with breath and a pulse. One he should have felt, had he his wits.

 

Kylo snarled as a blade pierced into his tunic, driving down into the gap of his collarbone, lancing towards his lungs. With his opposite hand he reached up and tried to grab at his attacker, but it was a futile effort. Instead, he staggered backwards and fought to shove his back against the wall, wresting the assassin from him.Squeezing the assassin between his bulk and the wall caused them to let go, and when Kylo turned, he still had the knife sticking out of his collarbone as he gazed down upon the scaly, noseless face of a bossk woman.

 

A Trandoshan bounty hunter would have no reason to kill him. There was no _bounty_ in it, not when the First Order was the law.

 

The reptilian woman raised a blaster from her hip and fired upon him, taking a chunk out of the opposite stone as Kylo rolled out of the way. It aggravated the vibroblade in his shoulder, which he then reached up to wrench free and tossed aside. It was soaked in his blood, and as he stood, he felt woozy.

 

No.

 

"You're feeling the effects of my poison," she hissed, her tongue dragging out the soft consonant. "So you are not immortal any more than the Jedi were."

 

He said nothing, but stomped to his feet and charged at her with an animalistic howl. She side-stepped him, and launched out of the way with a leap, rolling back to her feet with grace he lacked.

 

"My people used to hunt Jedi," she told him. "Your kind are better when they know their place."

 

The suggestion that using the Force and a lightsaber made him a Jedi of any sort only made him more furious than her initial attack and her cowardly use of poison had. Good. That anger, and the pain and confusion that it brought, joined with a newfound paranoia over who had solicited this strike and drew him closer to the Dark Side. Betrayal and hatred were instructive, useful for focus.

 

He ignited his lightsaber and ran for her, swinging wildly. She dodged the first, but he expected it this time. His off-hand shot out, and with the Force he pushed her into the wall and held her fast. She squirmed and claws, her boots kicking against the smooth stone with no chance of finding purchase. However she had clung to the ceiling, it was not with anything sticking her boots.

 

Kylo advanced on her then.

 

"Kill me if you want," she said, blood in her teeth. She must have bitten down when she hit the wall. "The poison will take you either way."

 

He raised his lightsaber and drove it with both hands down into her chest, then sunk to his knees and let the dizziness take him. She was right. The poison was strong, and she had driven it near his heart. No one was here to get him to the medical bay. Even if they were, they might not help. Someone had paid her. Someone had summoned her.

 

He was alone. Utterly, now. He had not realized it before, or at least had thought nothing of it. From Snoke's side, he had felt comfortable. But he had seen, briefly, what it was to not be alone, to have someone who would …

 

Well, who would leave him alive, no matter her hurt. He had driven her off too. Rey's face came to him as his vision tunneled, haunting him. It felt like slipping into unconsciousness, like —

 

The rasp of his breath startled him, for it echoed.

 

"This again?" asked a familiar voice. It was her. Haunting him, maybe, like the rest of the ghosts of this forsaken temple. He opened his mouth to answer, but no sound came. Instead he collapsed from his knees, falling onto his back. The pain of his head cracking on the stone floor barely processed. "Ben!"

 

She was upon him then. Her hands were warm, touching the wound in his collarbone.

 

"You're bleeding." Rey said those words like she was scolding him. She held her palm to his wound. _That_ pain lanced through him, kept him conscious. "I need something. A bacta patch, something to compress it."

 

"Poison," he said. He reached up to hold her wrist. "Won't help."

 

He met her gaze, and startled at the fear he saw there. Now that he was more lucid, he could feel it too, pouring across the bond. Her mouth set, lips pursed, and she said, "That must be why it burns."

 

"You feel it." She nodded. That made sense, somehow. "Aren't you glad?"

 

"If I had wanted you dead, you'd _be dead,_ Ben." It seemed to sink in then for them both. He really might be. Dead, that is. His pulse quickened with fear of it, heart weak but futilely trying to fight it off. The Dark warned him that she might go with him, that he might have killed her too, and he can see that fear mirrored in her. But it's overshadowed by the pain and grief. "I won't let you die."

 

"I doubted you," he said. It seemed important to put forth now, if he might not get another chance. "I'm … sorry."

 

Maybe it would have been easier if he hadn't. If he'd seen that she was the only one who was there for him from the beginning.

 

She shushed him, pulling her hands away and looking down at his blood in an acute panic. She looked up and around, as though trying to search the temple. But no, that was ridiculous. She would never be able to see it.

 

"Apologize later. Save your strength."

 

There wouldn't be a later. There was only now. His eyes drifted shut and his barriers crumbled and he felt her grab at his waist. The comm device. She checked it, but she must have known that just because someone was coming wouldn't guarantee it would be the right someone. She must have.

 

"You've never known when to give up," he told her. "On a lost cause."

 

"You give up too easily." She spat it like vitriol. Looking up, she shouted, voice cracking. He thought he felt something wet trickle onto his lips, tasted salt, but she couldn't be shedding tears for him. Wouldn't. " _HELP!"_

 

Futile, he thought. And foolish. A way to bring out any fellow conspirators, and—

 

The sound of thumping boots reached his ears. Hers, too, by the look of the way her eyes widened.

 

"He's this way!" said a voice warped by a vocoder. A stormtrooper. When he reached for Rey again, she was gone. It should have been impossible that they would have heard her. These manifestations were only psychic, not real. Never real. But when the stormtroopers descended around him, preparing him for transport, he heard one say, "She's gone. Find her."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some Clone Wars reference in here because I just got done watching it. I hope the expansion of the Force Bond powers works, and I hope it's clear why it happened now. And I really hope this chapter in general works because it's an emotional beat I'd really like to see EP IX pay off on. Let me know what you think!


	9. Opportunity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Resistance and First Order rally in response to the news of the attempted assassination of Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, but Rey and Kylo's allegiances are conflicted.

The Resistance was celebrating.

They claimed it was about whatever had happened on Naboo, and there _were_ a great deal more people in the base than there used to be, but Rey knew what it was really about. It stung. She hadn't even made her way over to congratulate Rose and Poe on a mission well-completed, couldn't, because she knew she'd overhear something that would make her retch.

Ben could be dead. He hadn't looked good when the Force had cut them off, the color drained from his face, turning him ashen. She'd always thought he was pale, but his lips had lost their pinkness, and the dark circles under his eyes had spread. So horrified had she been by the sight that when C'ai came chasing the sound of screaming in her bunk, he'd had to drag her from her spot to General Organa.

"What happened?" Leia's voice then had sounded so maternal and worried that despite being shell-shocked and pale with grief, Rey had answered her questions and explained the whole thing.

"We need to do something," Rey said. "They've turned on him. We need to do something."

"We can't." Leia had sounded so apologetic, so weary. Trapped. "He made sure of that when he chose to remain among the First Order."

Apparently, Leia had set aside her conflicted feelings as a mother and spread that news. Everyone here tonight had been made aware. If anything, it had seemed to boost morale. Connix walked past Rey's seat, talking to one of the new recruits.

"I've been watching First Order frequencies for any mention of the assassination attempt, but there's nothing. They're not publicizing it." She sounded downright giddy. "That has to mean they don't have the assassin yet. There could be another attempt."

Fool that she was, Rey had originally rejoiced her opportunity to come celebrate. Now she saw that it was only because Leia knew that the particulars of the Naboo mission would _not_ be the focal point of the evening. Whatever they might have said of the mission on Naboo was pushed to the wayside.

What Connix overlooked, however, was that not publicizing the attempt also meant that Ben was probably still alive. Rey chose to believe that she would feel it if something had become of him, that his death would affect her bodily for the bond they shared, but … she didn't know.

All she knew for sure was that somehow, in that moment, as he'd apologized, she'd been able to see his surroundings for the first time. She didn't recognize the scenery, though Leia later suggested that it sounded like the Imperial Palace on Coruscant. Something was changing.

"You're not drinking," Finn noted as he approached her, holding up a second cup. Rey could not muster a smile in reply, not this time, and she just held up a hand to refuse it.

"I'd rather not." As a rule, really. They so rarely had any alcohol to go around on base that it hadn't come up, but … it only made her think of her parents. "I don't really feel up for celebrating, Finn. You should go find Poe or Rose."

"And stop worrying about you?" Finn shook his head. "It's like you don't know me at all." That made her laugh, but he followed it up by asking, "Is it all that stuff they're saying about what happened?"

"Yeah."

"You know I don't like hearing about all this," he began.

"That's why I haven't been telling you."

"And I really hate that guy."

"Join the party." Rey nodded out towards the other attendants, who all rejoiced in Ben's suffering. The worst part was knowing that it wasn't unwarranted, yet it still alienated her further from them by making it obvious that she was not one of them. Not really.

"Hey," Finn said sharply, setting the drinks aside so he could touch her arm. "I'm not done. I really hate that guy, _but_ I want you to tell me what really happened."

Tears clouded her vision and she glanced away from him, huffing out a tremulous breath. She didn't like that it meant so much to her that he'd asked despite himself. She didn't like that she felt this way, torn between allegiances.

But she told him. About the fact that she'd seen Ben's surroundings — "That's great news! Isn't it?" he'd asked, and she hadn't had the heart to tell him she wasn't trying to spy — and the fact that he'd been poisoned and she'd felt it working through her just as quickly. And when she was done, she explained, "The worst part was not being able to do anything to help him. I've never felt so useless."

"You're not supposed to be helping him, Rey." Finn sounded pained to say it. "You're supposed to be gathering intel. I know you two have something together, but don't forget he _chose_ to stay there."

"What if he regrets it?" Rey asked, eyes shining. That's the crux of it, really. "What if he wants to come back?"

"Then he'll come back." His voice was hard. Unrelenting. He had earned that in a way none of the others had. "Trust me. I know a thing or two about what it feels like. If you really want to leave that place, you make it happen."

It wasn't what she wanted to hear, but it wasn't not what she wanted to hear either. It was a kind of hope, just given in a way she hadn't expected. Finn didn't scorn her for wanting to give Ben a chance; he understood, valued that. That same compassion had given him a chance, after all. But he also wasn't going to let her get ahead of herself again.

She reached out and squeezed his knee.

"Thanks."

"Great. Come on. I think they're dancing, and I don't wanna get caught without a partner."

"Oh, something tells me that's not going to be a problem."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Finn sounded incredulous, but Rey just laughed.

"Nothing, nothing."

#

Fatigue lingered with Kylo, even after he was cleared by the medi-droid. He tried to shrug it off, blink his way through it, and carry on about his duties. Something in the stomp of his feet must have put anyone off from approaching him. Everyone, except for a small unit of stormtroopers who greeted him as he exited the medical bay.

"Leave," he ordered.

"We can't, Supreme Leader." The stormtroopers exchanged an uneasy glance, blasters ready in front of them.

The other said, "General Hux's orders. To prevent another attempt."

He did not like the sound of that. It implied that Hux's orders superseded his own in some way, and that felt too muc hlike a coup to go unaddressed. Kylo's mood soured beyond the mere effects of the fatigue.

"Then summon General Hux to me."

They complied with that order easily — no interference with their previous instructions, no competing directives from leadership. Simple. Just the way Hux's stormtroopers liked it. And they were his stormtroopers. Any uncertainties Kylo had once possessed about that were corrected now, by this.

Enemies surrounded him on all sides. That would not do.

It took half an hour for Hux to get to him. To hear Hux make excuses, it was because he'd been caught up in meetings with High Command — but those were meetings that Kylo should have attended, and when Kylo solicited the content of them, Hux was vague.

"We were discussing the attempt on your life, Supreme Leader." As if this was a reassurance. Kylo could not be sure that they were not orchestrating another. "Obviously, it was a maneuver by the Resistance to destabilize the First Order leadership further. They have attempted it before."

"And it was a failure," Kylo rumbled. "Why would they do it again?"

"A valuable question, one I believe can be extracted only through interrogation of a Resistance agent."

He felt foggy still from the poison, so Kylo did not respond, too busy trying to suss out what Hux was getting at here to make direct reply. It did not make any sense to him that the Resistance would risk an attack in Coruscant — more to the point, judging by Rey's reaction, he knew with certainty that they'd had nothing to do with this. Any search for them would lead back to her, and she …

Hux seized upon the silence to push further.

"I would like to enlist your Knights as operatives to take captive one such operative."

"No." Kylo spoke flatly. "My Knights are not part of the First Order army. They are not under you command."

And they were the only people who might stand a ghost of a chance, excepting himself, of taking down the last jedi if they came across her. That, he could not afford.

"But they operate under our Supreme Leader."

"You have a million stormtroopers at your disposal. If you cannot train them to be competent, then you should reevaluate your training protocols. Not steal my guard."

"With all due respect, Supreme Leader, your guard is precisely the unit that should be pursuing information on your attack. If it is to be prevented—"

"I said no."

"Even _one_ —"

"I said _no!"_ This time, Kylo snarled the word, rising to his feet off the medical cot.

Immediately he regretted it. The room spun. Slowly, he reached out to grip the nearby railing, steadying himself. He did not sit back down. He would not sacrifice his dignity before Hux in such a way.

The General looked furious, but he did not speak for some time. Instead he digested the refusal.

"Very well." Hux sniffed. "We will see what other units can be spared to scour nearby space for traces of the assassin's origins."

Though Kylo was so often grateful to be rid of Hux's company, this time, his departure felt ominous in a way that he could not shake. Kylo drew himself away from the bed, snatched up his tunic, and made his way to the turbolift. His hands were tied in terms of his own practical reach. He could go nowhere without drawing attention, not physically at least, but there was still the reach of his influence to consider when it came to the matter of keeping Hux away from Rey.

It would figure, of course, that the only way to reach her was so damnably unpredictable. All he could do if he meant to warn her that she would be pursued in connection with his attack was meditate. Meditate, and _hope._

#

The revelry was over as quickly as it had begun. That was the way of things in the Resistance. Everyone had to be ready to pick up and go at a moment's notice, and the fight was constant. They accepted that, and no one seemed to complain about it.

Rey felt a little like complaining, though, when Finn came to her in her bunk with that dour look on his face.

"You can't tell me," she said before he could get a word out.

"What?"

"You're going somewhere. I can tell. You have your look."

"I don't have a look."

"You _do._ Whenever we're going to be apart, you get this look like it's going to be forever. It won't, Finn. Whatever it is, you're going to do great."

Something warm lit up behind his eyes, but he sank onto the bunk across from her all the same, undiscouraged by her reiteration of the rules _he_ had been the first to point out. The parameters of her duties as they compared to his.

"Thanks." He sounded honestly relieved, hands wringing a little between his knees as he hunched forward. "… But I can tell you."

"What?"

A grin spread across his face and he nodded. It felt like a weight off both of them — at first, anyway. Then the reality sank in. If he could tell Rey, it wasn't because she was relieved of her duty. It would have been Leia coming to tell her that, and it would have been connected to the attempt on Kylo.

No. No one had decided he wasn't a useful source of information to milk and manipulate anymore, just because people had turned against him. Which meant Rey wasn't free of her task. If she wasn't, then it meant Finn's mission, whatever it was, had something to do with hers.

She frowned, a perfect contrast to his enthusiasm. In the face of her sour expression, his glee faded quickly.

"I'm going back in."

"In where?" A pause, then, "The _First Order?_ Finn, _no._ You don't have to do this."

"I know. I get that. I could have walked away from this a hundred times, Rey, believe me, and so could you _._ But it's worth fighting for. I believe that." He straightens a little bit, lifting his chin.Stubborn and proud. Just the way she liked him, even if it was infuriating now. "But I need your help."

"I don't like this."

"No. We didn't think you would." She sighed, and he continued on, "I'm gonna infiltrate as a stormtrooper, try to get close to the guys on Coruscant who were there for the assassination attempt. Most of them aren't guys who would have known me while I was there, and we have someone coding me a new ID. There's just one problem—"

"Kylo Ren _knows you."_

"Right."

"You're going to get killed."

"By your boyfriend who's such a nice guy?"

"Finn," she appealed, impatient. It didn't seem fair for him to simplify her words like that. He held up his hands in surrender.

"Look, I'm just saying. We know he's the problem. That's why we need you to keep him distracted. He's pretty much the only person who could blow this for me. If this works, and we find out who tried to take him out, we might be able to find new allies for the Resistance."

"We're recruiting assassins now?"

"Whatever it takes." Finn said seriously, "No one ever claimed war was pretty, even for the good guys."

And wasn't that the truth. She'd spent too much time lately being reminded just how hideous it could be, the toll it took on the people who had to do those terrible acts. Luke had suggested once that the Jedi had become the Republic's army, that they had lost sight of their vision and beliefs, grown too militaristic. She had to wonder what Luke would say about her, now, acting as a spy.

Certainly _she_ didn't have anything kind to say about it.

"Whatever it takes, Rey," Finn repeated. "Right?"

"Yeah."

Even she could tell her reply was limp.

"We're counting on you." He reached out across the narrow bunk space to grab her hand. "If you can't do it, you need to say something."

It was the first time anyone had offered her a way out. But of course Finn would. Not just because this time it was his life on the line, not the Resistance's mission success, but because it was _Finn._ He was always worried about her, looking out for her. She softened, seeing it now.

"I'm not sure."

"Well, that's comforting."

"You didn't want comforting. You wanted honest."

"I was kinda hoping they'd be the same thing."

She laughed and pulled her hand back. Shaking her head, she looked up at the ceiling. Things had become so complicated lately. Laughing felt too scarce a commodity, and so did her time with Finn. Lately it was always tainted by talk of Kylo Ren. As if she was constantly defending him, but she hated Kylo Ren more than anyone.

It was Ben Solo she wanted. No one else could seem to see the difference. Or maybe it was just that no one else could seem to see Ben Solo at all.

"It's cruel," she said. "Using his feelings for me like that."

"Maybe."

"And it's morbid to go looking after his assassins in hopes that we can — what, help them? I don't want him killed. I want him _saved._ "

"If that's possible, sure."

Finn, of course, still couldn't see what Ben needed saving from. Rey couldn't blame him for that — without the Force, it would be like missing a sense. He had no context to reach from.

"Is someone going with you?"

"Rose," he said. "But she shouldn't need to be inside the base at all. Just flying the ship."

Famous last words, Rey thought. No. He was right. They _needed her._ This operation wouldn't work without a real distraction, and she knew Finn wouldn't turn his back on it. She needed to keep them safe, even if it meant lying.

There were worse crimes.

Slowly, reluctantly, Rey nodded. Her voice was quiet as she said, "I'll do it."

"You sure?" Finn wore fierce determination effortlessly. "No doing this halfway."

"I wouldn't risk you like that." She sounded offended even to herself, but it got him to back off. Good. She wasn't sure she could keep arguing this point when the whole thing left a bad taste in her mouth. "But I can't control the connection."

"That's fine," Finn said. "Just try and keep it open as long as you can once it starts. And make sure you give him a lot to think about."

"You mean you want me to attack someone who's just been poisoned."

"Just a little." Finn agreed readily. "Okay, a lot, but I don't wanna push my chances." Good humor out of the way, he sobered again, looking intently into her eyes. "Can you do it?"

"I think so." She didn't like it, but, "Yeah."

"Then I'm heading out today."

They rose then, embracing one another for a long moment. Laughing against her shoulder, Finn said, "This time, you're the one making the face."

She didn't answer him. She was too afraid that if she did, it would be the last words she ever spoke to him, and she didn't know yet what she wanted those to be. She wasn't ready. She probably never would be, so this _had_ to work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise this fic is still alive. I'm just slow. 
> 
> But I traveled for 28 whole hours so I got a lot of writing done.


End file.
